UK restaurants throw away 600,000 tons of food per year

by How It Works Team · 14/09/2016

How It Works caught up with Too Good To Go co-founder Chris Wilson to chat about the app’s vision for a reduced waste future.

What is Too Good to Go?

Too Good to Go is a social enterprise that is trying to say that all food is something that should be eaten and not thrown away. We’ve created a mobile app that allows customers to collect surplus food from restaurants, cafes and bakeries that would otherwise be thrown away. It will raise awareness of food waste while getting across the idea that what we classify as a society as a waste often isn’t at all.

How does it work?

Once you’ve downloaded the app and created a free account, you’ll be taken straight through to the find food page. Restaurants near you that have food available to you will be shown. Once you’ve chosen a restaurant you follow through to the checkout process and take your mobile receipt to the restaurant at closing time, which can be the end of their lunch or the end of the evening. Once you arrive, they’ll hand you an environmentally friendly sugar cane box of food with a meal that they would’ve otherwise thrown in the bin. We’re currently up and running in London, Leeds, Brighton and Birmingham.

The app in action

How much of a problem is throwing away food today?

It’s a massive problem and something that hasn’t really been discussed in the mainstream media until recently. If food waste was a country, it would be the third largest emitter of greenhouse gases. UK restaurants are throwing away 600,000 tons of edible food per year yet at the same time we’re handing out over a million food parcels to people who can’t afford to buy themselves a meal. It’s a problem that doesn’t need to exist.

Too Good to Go is available free on Android and iOS. Currently four tonnes of CO2 emissions have been avoided and 3,070 meals have been saved.