In a bid to reduce waste, the food redistribution app, Too Good To Go, is expanding beyond food into personal care, pet care, flowers, nutrition and home.
Originally designed to redistribute surplus food before it reaches its expiration date and heads for composting or landfill, the company is now hoping to redistribute products with less stringent shelf lives so they avoid meeting the same fate.
It is estimated that around 40%. of all food produced globally goes to waste and, as a result, is responsible for 10% of greenhouse gas emissions. Post-harvest losses in floristry can reach 40% while global dry pet food production generates emissios on a par of the world’s 60th-highest-emitting country. Some consumers may be environmentally conscious but researhc shows that they are particularly value conscious, with inflation cited as their most worrying concern among 29% of consumers wordwide.
Over the last 10 years, the Marketplace has grown to connect 150million registered users with 200,000 active partners. Now, it hopes to expand its offering into five new areas with 8,500 of its existing stores already capable of adding these ranges to the app.
Expiration dates aren’t the only reason products head for the waste pile. Retail cycles, shifts in demand, new formulations and packaging can all render a perfectly usable product obsolete. While available at value prices, the potential ranges available are also what might be considered mid to even premium price point products. Nivea, Neutrogena, Auchan, Decathlon, Interflora and Whole Foods are all participants, depending on the user’s location.
Mette Lykke, CEO of Too Good To Go explains:
“In today’s society, we have built incredibly efficient processes for producing and selling things at scale, creating abundance, but we have not built the same efficiency into making sure what is left over gets used. As our lives have become more convenient, we have become less conscious of what those things are worth.
“We used to finish what was on the plate, find a use for what we had and instinctively pause before throwing something away. Too Good To Go is built on making the invisible visible. Value exists all around us. Whether it is a meal, moisturiser, plant or pet product, our role is to help it find someone who can use it. Some products are simply too good to go.”
