Photo by Smol Fortune

High-priced food? Bad.

Food waste? Also bad.

Solutions that work to eliminate both? Good!

Too Good To Go is an app that provides consumers the opportunity to buy unsold food from restaurants and stores at discounted costs.

The app is free and lets you set your location so that you can see which retailers in your area are offering “surprise bags” of goodies. It also allows you to filter results based on the category of the “surprise bag” (meals, bread & pastries, groceries, and other), dietary preferences, and the time frame of when the bag must be picked up. All retailers have scores and “highlights” based on app users’ prior experiences with them.

The first time I used Too Good To Go, I reserved a mystery bag of pastries from one of my favorite nearby coffee shops. I paid $3.99 and received a chocolate muffin (normally $4.25), butter croissant (normally $3.75), chocolate croissant (normally $4.50), and an almond croissant (normally $4.50). All were fresh, tasty, and the same quality and appearance of any of the pastries I had ever purchased from the shop at full price.

In total, the app saved me $13.01 aka about 77% on the haul and prevented food from going to waste. I‘ve had similar experiences and luck with the majority of the retailers I’ve reserved bags from. The one thing I will note is that the “groceries” category of bags don’t seem to be as worthwhile — the last one I saw included a few bubbly waters and a very sad banana.

If interested in using Too Good To Go, you can sign up for it here. Sadly, I don’t know of any referral codes or sign-up bonuses, but the savings the app brings speaks for itself.

If there is a retailer you love that is not yet on the app or you live in an area that Too Good To Go has not expanded to, I encourage you to bring it to their attention or see if the creation or existence of a community program with similar benefits is available.