An app that launched in Baltimore this month offers diners the chance to save some money while saving food from going to waste.
Too Good To Go connects restaurants, bakeries and other culinary businesses to hungry consumers looking for a deal. Participating businesses put together a "surprise bag" of surplus meals or products that otherwise would have had to be thrown away, and then sell the bag at a deep discount. In Baltimore, surprise bags typically cost between $3.99 and $5.99, and can include a wide range of foods, from pizza slices to pastries or a pint of gelato.
The tech business, a certified B corporation, was founded in Denmark five years ago and launched a U.S. expansion in September. In addition to Baltimore, Too Good To Go has a presence in 12 other American cities, including Washington, D.C., New York City, Boston, San Francisco, Chicago and Austin, and has so far garnered 1.5 million app users and 6,000 partner businesses in the U.S., according to the company.
The app is also available abroad in 17 other markets, including Paris, London, Madrid, Toronto and Amsterdam. Too Good To Go says its app has been downloaded 47 million times, saving more than 100 million meals.
Some Baltimore businesses that have so far signed up for the app are Pitango Bakery & Cafe, Cocina Luchadoras, The Land of Kush, My Mama's Vegan, Poyoteca, Baby's On Fire, Mikie's Pizza & Subs and Franchesca's Empanadas.
Sid Sharma, a co-founder of local kombucha producer Mobtown Fermentation, said he decided to sign his company up for Too Good To Go to further Mobtown's support for environmentalist causes. The business already donates 1% of its sales of Wild Bay Kombucha to the Chesapeake Bay Foundation.
Food waste is a prominent contributor to climate change, accounting for 10% of global greenhouse gas emissions, and signing up for the app felt like "an incredible opportunity to divert waste while still getting marketing value and new customers out of it," Sharma said.
It's also an opportunity to sell off excess product during a slower time of year for the business. ("Cold drinks tend to fly off the shelves in the warmer weather, but slow down when it gets cold," Sharma said.)
Mobtown Fermentation's surprise bags for the app feature six mix-and-match flavors of Wild Bay Kombucha for $6, less than a third of the $21 price tag for a six-pack of the company's kombucha in grocery stores. Sharma said the business has sold about four or five surprise bags a day since Too Good To Go launched in Baltimore.
"We're hyper-aware that kombucha's not the most affordable thing in the world," he said. "In terms of Baltimore and our city, I think it's an incredible tool for food access."
Too Good To Go says it plans to grow the app's reach in the near future, with new U.S. cities slated to be added by the end of next year.
