I’d like to tell you about an app I love: Too Good To Go.
Too Good To Go, available and functional worldwide, helps you get discounted “surprise bags” of foods from local restaurants and supermarkets, so that those establishments don’t have to let food go to waste.
Also: You can get discounted food.
A variety of restaurants and supermarkets in my town participate with Too Good To Go. I can mark places as favorites, and I can browse the full roster of participating establishments. Which restaurants have offers can vary a bit by day. But most days, local bagel places offer an assortment of bagels for sometime after their morning rush; pizza places offer a mix of slices and sandwiches and the like after 9 or 10pm.
The catches: You prepay for your “surprise box,” you don’t pick what’s in it (or even find out until you get it), and you must arrive to pick up your box in a specific time window. These stores are looking to offload food when they can’t sell it anymore, and your job is to get it at the time they want.
The perk: You get a lot of food and don’t pay a lot for it. Plus, yeah, you’re helping to eliminate food waste. Win/win!
We grab surprise bags from a local bakery a couple times a month. If my son is starving when he comes home from a late gig, we’ll often order from one of the local pizza places on our way home so he can get a hodgepodge of food.
When we travel to other places — both in the US and internationally — we often check for local Too Good To Go boxes. It’s a fun way to discover restaurants and get a slew of good stuff to eat.
The app is free, and prices per surprise boxes vary.