Ordering food is expensive and buying groceries almost always means you throw something out that should have been used that week. The same applies to local restaurants and cafes. Although their scale for grocery shopping or buying food is larger than your average four-person household, restaurants will still end a week with food that should have been used. TooGoodToGo is attempting to fix this problem. Through their app, you can help reduce the global food waste problem by purchasing ‘left-over’ food from local restaurants. To clarify, you are not getting a restaurants old, expired food. Rather, those extra pastries, bagels, or whatever that business should have sold that day are yours at a discount.
The mission of TooGoodToGo is to reduce our food waste on a global level and focus on nations across the world with strong influence, including the United States of America. Not only has TooGoodToGo recognized the impact the U.S. has on food waste, but they have also recognized the positive efforts the U.S. has made to change food waste:
To help galvanize national efforts to reduce food loss and waste, the USDA and EPA announced the United States’ first-ever food loss and waste reduction goal in September 2015, calling for a 50% reduction by 2030 (USDA, 2015). There is also the 'Winning on Reducing Food Waste' initiative which is aimed at improving coordination and communication across federal agencies, in order to better educate Americans on the impact and importance of reducing food loss and waste.
Several other federal food waste policies (REFED, 2019) are now underway and cities are starting initiatives. Austin, Texas, is amongst those cities that has now committed to becoming a zero-waste city by 2040. Diversion programs ensure food and other organics are put to best use away from landfills within a universal recycling ordinance (Austin Texas Gov, 2014).
Food waste has been a problem our world has faced for decades and it is not an issue that is simply going to disappear on its own, however efforts to make individual change are getting easier and easier. Apps such as TooGoodToGo have made the individual consumers responsibility to our planet clear and simple. It's as easy as downloading the app, browsing the offers, paying, picking up your food, and helping the health of our planet.
