New App Fights Food Waste With Discounted Goods From Oasis, Milkwood and Cobb Lane

Too Good To Go has helped save 350 million meals across 19 countries since its founding in Copenhagen in 2015. The surplus food vigilantes arrived in Melbourne at the end of August and are on a mission to help reduce our city’s food waste.

The concept is simple: download the app, find businesses near you with “Surprise Bags” filled with surplus food at a reduced price, pay using the app and pick up your goods in-store.

In Melbourne, you’ll find food from cafes, bakeries and restaurants including Milkwood, Onigiri, Lux Bite, Cobb Lane and Abacus Bar & Kitchen, as well as grocery stores such as Oasis and Gertrude Grocer.

While it’s not an entirely new concept – Shannon Martinez’s Smith & Deli offers what it calls “mystery boxes” at the end of the day via Door Dash, for example – the app does help streamline the process.

Joost Rietveld, country director for Australia, tells Broadsheet the uptake in Melbourne has “surpassed expectations”.

“We were happy to launch with about 80 partners, but right now we have more than 120 locations, and 80,000 people have logged into the application.”

Undercover Roasters COO Alex O’Connor, whose company is on the app, says it has helped them recover costs. “We’ve sold out of Surprise Bags every day since we started,” he tells Broadsheet.

The treats are mostly pastries – croissants and cruffins – but depending on the day, may also include carrot cake and caramel slices. But, as O’Connor says, “Some of them are snapped up in as little as 10 minutes.” So it’s best to be quick.

toogoodtogo.com