Austin-based Whole Foods and Too Good To Go are taking their partnership to reduce food waste nationwide after a successful pilot in the Texas capital.
If you're not familiar with Too Good To Go, here's a quick primer. It's an app available on your phone that allows users to purchase a surprise bag of unsold food that would have otherwise been thrown out at the end of the day from local businesses. The app tells users how many surprise bags are left at the location, how much they cost and occasionally hints at what kind of food is in the bag.
The partnership with Whole Foods includes two surprise bags: a bakery bag and a prepared food bag. The prepared food bag is priced at $9.99 and promises food that would normally be $30. The bakery bag is priced at $6.99 for a $21 value.
Too Good To Go launched its app in 2015 in Denmark and brought its services to Austin in 2021, before expanding to other Texas cities, including San Antonio, Houston and Dallas, in 2023.
Sarah Soteroff, head of public relations for Too Good To Go, said Austin is one of their strongest markets.
“We already have 463,000 saved meals across Austin from almost a thousand partners,” Soteroff said.
It's been a year since Whole Foods and Too Good To Go partnered in Austin. Since then, they've avoided thousands of pounds in emissions.
“Based on the success of that pilot, we're able to roll out the first 150 stores earlier in June. And then the final 200 or so stores came last week and it's been a tremendous success,” Soteroff said.
Briana Ellsworth, a Too Good To Go shopper in Austin, has picked up a surprise bag from Whole Foods several times.
“If I'm lucky there'll be a prepared food one. The pickup time is usually in the evening, so you kind of have to schedule your day a little bit,” Ellsworth said.
When she can, Ellsworth reserves the prepared food bag and has gotten salads, sandwiches and hot foods to eat over the next couple of days.
Too Good To Go is looking at other grocers in Texas it could partner with. Among them is one with a cult-like following. (You guessed it, H-E-B).
“It would be fantastic to work with a H-E-B on a statewide level ... because, as indicated, there's so much surplus food waste happening at the grocery level. So it's a big, big target for us. The grocery sector is a hugely important one," Soteroff said.
Wondering just how large the impact of food waste is? The Environmental Protection Agency says wasted food causes more than half of methane emissions from landfills, according to a 2023 report.
“Due to its quick decay rate, food waste in landfills is contributing to more methane emissions than any other landfilled materials,” the EPA said in its report.
Whole Foods has pledged to cut its food waste in half by 2030 as part of the U.S Food Lost and Waste 2030 Champions. Since launching the pilot program with Too Good To Go, Whole Foods has avoided more than 276,000 pounds of CO2 emissions by keeping food waste out of landfills, according to an impact report released by Whole Foods.
“We’re excited to amplify the reach of our program and make an even greater impact, as we expect Too Good To Go to be operational in over 450 stores by the end of July 2024,” Whole Foods said in its report.
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