Danish food waste prevention app looks to US market

The ‘Too Good To Go’ concept has spread to six countries – and it’s still growing

Stephen Gadd

Back in 2015, a group of friends in Denmark had the brilliant idea for an app to help people buy food that otherwise would have been thrown in the dustbin. This became ‘Too Good To Go’.

The app has since spread to cover 4,500 restaurants and shops and the company has grown from 15 to 70 employees. So far, the app has managed to prevent two million portions of food that otherwise would have been thrown out from going to waste, TV2 Nyheder reports.

‘Too Good To Go’ now has its sights set on the US market, where food waste is a huge problem.

READ ALSO: Danish initiative to combat food waste launched in New York

Keeping it green
The app works by allowing users to order surplus food from local restaurants, cafes, hotels, bakeries and shops to be picked up an hour before closing time in biodegradable packaging delivered by the company to keep things as ‘green’ as possible. The food costs around 30 kroner.

According to the United Nations, 40 percent of all the food produced in the world ends up being thrown away. As the ‘Too Good To Go’ website says, “our mission is to prevent food from being thrown in the dustbin and by doing this, make our contribution to minimising the enormous effects food waste has on the environment.”

Helping out worldwide
Klaus Pedersen, a founder of the company, is now looking outside Denmark in order to build a business that can help alleviate waste worldwide.

“When we started, I had absolutely no idea that we could get as far as we’ve done now, so it’s rather overwhelming that so many people and businesses have supported our idea to reduce food waste,” he said.

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