I often read our lists of the best Android apps and best iPhone apps and try to find new additions to my phone to play with, but rarely do they bring such a big change in my life as Too Good To Go has.
I first heard about this app in lockdown, but when you hear me describe what it does, you will realize why I did not use it much when it was stuck indoors. But someone has recently reintroduced it for me and I can not believe I missed anything all the time.
Too Good To Go lets me combine three of my favorite things: saving money, helping the planet and eating lots of really good food – and I would recommend you check it out too.
What is Too Good To Go?
Too Good To Go is, according to its website, an app that aims to help reduce food waste.
You use the app to find local and qualified shops, cafes, restaurants and similar businesses. Each of them will offer you specific time windows – some will have lunch-shakes right after lunch, and some will have dinner-rush, for example, late at night.
You pay a small amount of money via the app and show up in the store by the respective window – then you will receive a goody bag depending on what you have ordered. You may receive some leftover food from a cafe if, for example, you ordered the lunch option.
Why it’s amazing
‘So … you just buy food supplies?’ I know what you’re thinking. Well, not quite – at Too Good To Go you usually pay between a quarter and a third of what the food is actually worth.
Why is it so cheap? Well, that’s because it’s food that the store will not be able to sell for much longer – maybe it’s on the last sale date, or the place’s internal rules require that they only sell food prepared that day.
This does not mean that you will lose food – it will still be fresh. But if, for example, you pick up a 10 pm bag just before the store closes, it must get rid of the food the same evening, because in the morning it is not suitable for sale. Most stores would otherwise throw it away – but thanks to Too Good To Go you can get it at a really low price.
I often pick up bags from my local Starbucks close to closing time – I get four or five items for the price you would normally pay for just one, and it’s often a good mix between toasted sandwiches, cakes and sweet foods like muffins or brownies.
But different restaurants, cafes, and shops near me have different windows, so if I come to Starbucks too early or late, I could take another place instead. It’s nice and versatile – I live right next to a popular commuter train station, which has countless options.
Sometimes you get the choice to filter by dietary needs – I’m a vegetarian, so it’s really useful, even if it limits the selection somewhat. But I have often found that even though I do not choose a vegetable bag (when the opportunity is not there), I am still often asked about dietary requirements, so grab vegetable food without having to order it.
Save money
You could come up with the very real argument that it’s not “saving money” to pick up bags of cheap Starbucks muffins since I would not buy them in the store on a regular day. So I still spend more money than on an average day, just not so very.
However, Too Good To Go also covers grocery stores, and this is where I’ve saved lots of cash.
There are a few corner shops and grocery stores near me that let me book bags of random groceries that are about to disappear – I recently got food worth £ 20, including lots of fresh vegetables, hummus, pasta and more. I got a few good meals out of this.
(I use UK currency and numbers for this article because I’m based there – but don’t worry, the app is available elsewhere around the world, including the US).
As a human being, I eat groceries, so it was great to get them incredibly cheap. Sure, the food was on the verge of going off – but when I made sure to cook with it the next few days, and gave a little away to my apartment mates, nothing was wasted.
I also used Too Good To Go when eating out with friends – some ‘street food’ restaurants (basically classic fast food) let you pick up dishes at certain times and I grabbed two burritos for £ 6 when I grabbed one bite with a friend. If I paid full price, it would be around £ 18- £ 20. On a!
It’s really easy to use Too Good To Go to find these places too, as the app lets you play with lots of filters. You can see places on a map, filter by type of food (groceries, meals, snacks), look at the availability windows so you can arrange when you are available – it’s great.
Too good, maybe – I’m now obsessed with the app.
Save the planet
Sure, Too Good To Go is great for my wallet, and also for my taste buds, but as the brand’s website says, its main purpose is to help the planet.
This is because food waste is a major problem worldwide – we produce too much food that is not eaten. According to Friends of the Earth, a third of the food produced globally is either lost or wasted, which, when you think about it, is an astonishingly large number.
This figure apparently includes 240,000 tonnes of food spilled by UK supermarkets each year – that is, according to some quick calculations, the same weight as around 60,000 Asian elephants (though I do not think we sell them in UK supermarkets).
Of course, this is something that Too Good To Go helps with – if you save some cheap groceries from the landfill, you will actively stop food waste.
Not only will it be less food being dumped in a large well, clogging our lovely planet, but you are also sending the message to the food industry that you are concerned about food waste issues.
There are some minor benefits that I have discovered: When I made the aforementioned grocery store, I got lots of lovely fresh ingredients that encouraged me to make a dish to incorporate them all. This made me more experimental with my food (making the strangest, but most interesting, lasagna I have ever made), and made me eat healthier, which of course is also great for the body and the planet.
In addition, I have visited independent companies much more, usually just to pick up cheap food, but it has encouraged me to go back even when I am not using the app.
As a member of the TechRadar phone team, I download apps all the time, but I rarely feel compelled to write long articles about them. However, Too Good To Go has inspired me with its mission to save the planet and save money – and it really does not hurt that I also get to eat lots of good food when I do.