I Spent a Week Eating Discarded Restaurant Food. But Was It Really Going to Waste?
June 19, 2024 at 12:10AMFor five days straight, Morgan Meaker used her grocery budget to experiment with an app called “Too Good To Go,” all to try to better understand and reduce food waste in London, England. The app matches bargain-hunting users with hotels, restaurants, and markets that sell leftover food for a reasonable prices, meals and groceries that would otherwise be diverted to the garbage bin.
Over the next two days, I live like a forager in my city, molding my days around pickups. I walk and cycle to cafés, restaurants, markets, supermarkets; to familiar haunts and places I’ve never noticed. Some surprise bags last for only one meal, others can be stretched out for days. On Tuesday morning, my £3.59 surprise bag includes a small cake and a slightly stale sourdough loaf, which provides breakfast for three more days. When I go back to the same café the following week, without using the app, the loaf alone costs £6.95.
TGTG was founded in Copenhagen in 2015 by a group of Danish entrepreneurs who were irked by how much food was wasted by all-you-can-eat buffets. Their idea to repurpose that waste quickly took off, and the app’s remit expanded to include restaurants and supermarkets. A year after the company was founded, Mette Lykke was sitting on a bus when a woman showed her the app and how it worked. She was so impressed, she reached out to the company to ask if she could help. Lykke has now been CEO for six years.
from Longreads https://longreads.com/2024/06/18/i-spent-a-week-eating-discarded-restaurant-food-but-was-it-really-going-to-waste/
via IFTTT
Watch