3 days Ago
The Too Good To Go app is a way to get baked goods cheap. Users have to pick up the surprise bags around closing time. In July, Rebecca Texada, now a resident of Prairieville, went back to Houston to visit family and friends.
She went to a restaurant to meet up with some friends, and afterward she was told they needed to make a stop on the other side of the parking lot. The friend came out with a boba tea pack with six full cups of tea, two full cups of boba and two full cups of milk. “We were like, ‘You didn’t have to treat us — that’s so expensive.
We’ll pay you back,” she said. But her friend told her she used an app, Too Good To Go, and it wasn’t actually expensive at all. The app allows users to pick up mystery bags of surplus food at a steep discount that restaurants, cafes, bakeries and grocery stores didn’t sell during the day — and would normally have to throw out.
Texada immediately downloaded it and started exploring. She used it for the rest of her trip and sent it to friends to check out, but when she looked at the offerings back home in Louisiana, options were sparse — she only saw three restaurants in the state using the service. Two girls enjoy salad from a Too Good To Go bag.
The app started in Copenhagen as a way to localize the fight against food waste. Too Good To Go originated in Copenhagen in 2015. Since then it’s spread to 18 countries in Europe and North America.
The app, which has more than 100 million users worldwide, aims to combat food waste by saving meals and groceries that would be tossed otherwise. The app has users in the U.S.
, but it’s not in every state. According to Sarah Soteroff, senior public relations manager for Too Good To Go North America, they hope to be active in every continental U.S.
state plus Hawaii within a year’s time. They haven’t officially rolled out in Louisiana yet, and Soteroff said she didn’t have information about where the state is on the docket. But the app has national partners like Whole Foods, Krispy Kreme, Circle K and 7-Eleven, so users in Louisiana can already find things like a dozen doughnuts, Whole Foods prepared food/bakery bags when they check the app.
Users in Shreveport also have the option of picking up a surprise bag from Smallcakes Cupcakery & Creamery. According to the World Wildlife Fund, humans waste 40% of food we produce. Without intervention, Soteroff said, “Ultimately that food goes into a landfill and that impact on the environment is egregious.
Food waste accounts for about 10% of all greenhouse gas emissions.” Kongsamsambath Lim arrives early every morning to have donuts ready to sell by 5:30 opening of her shop, Sambath Donuts and More. Soteroff said Too Good to Go aims to become part of people’s daily routine, “localizing the global fight against food waste.
” They saved 121,686,720 meals from landfills last year. It’s also a win-win for business owners. They can make money on what used to be lost revenue and wasted resources to make it.
When the app launches in a new market, the company sends sales team staff to recruit businesses in person. Once they reach a critical threshold of 75-100 stores, they’ll roll out the market and provide marketing support to help people find the app. But before then, businesses can still sign-up on the Too Good To Go website , even if it’s just to express interest — which is nonbinding.
Currently, the only business in Louisiana that’s on the app statewide is Sambath’s Donuts & More at 5703 Essen Lane in Baton Rouge and run by Kongsamsambath Lim. She heard about the app from her husband and signed up a couple months ago. She said it’s too soon to tell if the $80 annual fee is worth it.
She has 3-4 bags of leftover doughnuts for sale every day, and she usually sells 1-2. There aren’t many users in the area. The bags, of more than a dozen doughnuts, are priced at $5.
99 (normally $18). But that could change once there are more businesses and users on the app. Long before sunrise, Kongsamsambath Lim is rolling out dough to make donuts and other pastries for her shop, Sambath Donuts and More.
There is hunger for it among those who have moved from or traveled to cities with more options. Texada still uses the app from her home in Prairieville. “We look to save money where we can,” she said.
She doesn’t routinely buy fresh pastries or baked goods because of the price. “But with Too Good to Go, the price is low enough and the quantity is large enough that it’s totally worth it.” She sometimes freezes the baked goods she picks up.
In Houston, she used the app to try new restaurants she wouldn’t have otherwise. She tried a place called Pakwan House three days before she left Houston and went back every night for the same meal, paying full price. Rebecca Texada, currently a resident of Prairieville, picked up two bags of baked goods from the Baton Rouge Whole Foods using the Too Good To Go app.
This is what was inside. Many of her friends are excited to use the app when they travel, but they want more options before they would use it in Baton Rouge. For Texada, Swagat Indian Cuisine joining the platform would be a dream come true.
For those waiting, Soteroff said, “We’re coming.” They log interest from different markets from comments on their social media, and getting Louisiana on the Too Good to Go map might be closer than you think. They launch a new state every six weeks.
Local food culture could push Louisiana up on the priority list. “There is food waste everywhere,” said Soteroff. “But especially in amazing food cities like New Orleans, there's just such a culture of not wanting to waste food because there's such a love for the food, respect for the work and the time and the effort and the craft that goes into it, and that's a really great place to start.
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