Just because it’s not fresh doesn’t mean it’s not edible. For people willing to eat food that’s old, but not too old, a new app by the name of Too Good To Go sells leftover food that restaurants would normally throw out. Naturally, the food is much cheaper since it’s not quite as fresh as what the restaurants normally sell, which is justification enough to use the app, but it also helps combat the insane amount of food waste that’s generated by restaurants every day. The only real downside, other than eating food that’s not quite fresh, is that there’s no delivery option.
Still good enough to eat but not quite as fresh as it was at the start of the day, restaurants the world over are well known to trash perfectly decent food on a daily basis come closing time. The issue of food waste in the restaurant trade motivated a couple of London-based entrepreneurs to search for a fix. Their solution? An app that lets people order leftover restaurant and cafe grub that’d otherwise be dumped. Meals cost from as little as £2 ($2.60), topping out at just £3.80 ($4.95), “and that’s for the second best Japanese restaurant in the country,” according to the two guys behind the Too Good To Go app. Chris Wilson and Jamie Crummie, both 25, describe their idea as a “hyper-local environmental social enterprise dedicated to reducing food waste.” To find out what’s available each evening, you simply enter your zip code to reveal local establishments with meals on offer, or allow the app to use your location to sniff out nearby possibilities. Then it’s just a case of browsing the list, tapping on a place that looks interesting, and placing an order. There’s no delivery option – you’re asked to collect your meal up to an hour before closing time. Continuing with its green theme, the food is served in an environmentally friendly Too Good To Go sugarcane box.
