TooGoodToGo is an app launched in Denmark by young entrepreneurs trying to reduce food waste. Up to 40% of food is wasted worldwide and this app aims to offset that by allowing users to save food from grocery stores, cafes, and restaurants from the bin by buying it at a cheaper price. With the app now active in 18 countries, they saved over 121 million meals! Every bag saved is the equivalent of 2.7 kg of CO2 which reduces the amount of labor, water, land, and, of course, greenhouse gasses that are necessary to produce an entirely new meal. Food waste contributes to 10% of worldwide greenhouse gas emission and 25% of worldwide water usage. With all of these meals saved, they’ve been able to offset their company’s carbon footprint nearly 30 times over and this is not their only strategy to reduce food waste. They also print a special food safety label which emphasizes look-smell-taste over a “best by” or “use by” date. This helps customers not waste food in their homes because they simply threw it out after an arbitrary date. They also run several political campaigns to codify food waste reduction into law. In the UK, their political action helped revive a proposal which mandated food waste reporting.
The app is a great option for students because you can get about 3x the amount of food than you normally would for around 5 pounds. You can do this by saving meals directly from the restaurants and grocery stores or getting parcels of surplus food from wholesale sellers sent directly to your door. In the UK alone, about 9.5 million tons of food is thrown away every year and by using TooGoodToGo, you can help fight this!
