I’ve been using their app for some time now and really like the concept: Basically it allows restaurants, bakeries, supermarkets etc to announce when they have stuff leftover that they’d usually throw away at the end of the day. You can browse those nearby shops in the app and reserve a “surprise bag” for a small amount, usually around a third of the regular price, but it varies. In the pickup timeframe (usally around 30-60min before their closing time) you go there, show that you’ve reserved the bag in your app, confirm that you’ve received it and happily walk home with a ton of surprise food for super cheap.
After using it for a while I can especially recommend looking for food stalls at farmers markets as they often have lots of stuff leftover that they don’t want to take back home when packing up so they’re often super generous. Bakeries are also great, I regularly get a week’s supply of bread, buns, pastries and cake for like 3-5€.
EDIT: While it’s made in Denmark the app works globally or at least all of EuropeAFAIK, definitely works fine with lots of participating shops in Germany.
We got something similar called ResQ in Finland, works great but I guess it’s available only in very few countries.
Okay, what other ResQ clones are there? I’ve been wondering why there’s so little anything on ResQ in Denmark, and this explains it. Maybe there’s a third program that works in yet other countries?
I’m using 2g2g in Germany and there are lots of participating shops here. According to their website, they’re operating in all of Europe as well as Canada, Australia and the US.
That’s the one this post was about, though.
I know, I posted it. :) I wrote the comment as reply to
Maybe there’s a third program that works in yet other countries?
as 2g2g operates in a bunch of countries.
Yeah, and ResQ works in a bunch of other countries. Just wondering if there is a third bunch of countries served by a third app. I wouldn’t mind having them all installed on my phone when travelling 🙂
That’s also the OP, though
I tried this app and while I love the concept I think the implementation is trash.
My biggest complaint when I tried it was that you couldn’t specify dietary restrictions, like there’s not even a simple vegetarian option which would be so easy for many restaurants to accommodate. This app might be ok if you’re happy eating any slop the restaurant can’t sell that day, but if you have literally any preference then too bad.
Then there’s also the issue of some restaurants that intentionally make extra food so they can sell it on the app. I don’t have a solution to this one, but it’s a problem that needs to be addressed if the point of the app is to reduce food waste.
Don’t know if this is new but I just checked and you can set your diet preferences in the account settings.
I hardly believe restaurants prepare extra food in advance just to sell it a huge discount with very little or no profit. Actually whenever I went to a restaurant that participated it wasn’t leftover stuff but they cooked the meal fresh just for me. I guess they’re using the app as a way to advertise and draw more people in with a big discount and hope they come back again to eat there at the full price.
From my own experience, it’s down to the restaurant / shop to offer a vegetarian option, TGTG doesnt tell the restaurant what to offer, so maybe see if you can get your favorite places to offer a vegetarian / vegan / etc bag. A grocery store in my area offer a vegan breakfast almost every day. As for what TGTG should do, maybe they could add filters and tags so you can filter out your preferences. That would be cool.
There is a filter in the settings for vegan/vegetarian. In my experience the shops/restaurants always asked me if I eat meat/fish when filling the bag, but I also live in a very hipster area where it feels like majority of people is vegan now, might be different elsewhere. :)
Unpopular opinion: i think the whole concept is just “selling a problem” instead of solving it. All the participating stores now can “green”-wash their hands and do literlay nothing against foodwaste and are just building am industry around it. Rather than ordering or producing less products in the first place.
Have you ever worked at a small bakery or cafe? It’s basically impossible to know exactly how many customers youre going to have on any given day.
They could always underproduce, sure, but my guess is that then businesses that care about cutting down on waste would lose business to places that regularly overproduce, when customers started choosing the place that was never out of stock of their favorites, or was always offering a wider selection. Underproduction by companies trying to responsibly reduce waste would probably benefit the largest corporations, with their better magins due to economy of scale, who are also more able to lose money in some areas just to drive business to other departments. Maybe that’s partially on the customers and their choices, but I think the idea behind this app is a good way to encourage competition, and benefits smaller, more local businesses.
Also this allows places to experiment more. Not sure everyone will enjoy your new recipe? Here’s an established way to recoup costs at the end of the day, to at least break even. Bakeries for as long as I can remember have been discounting “day old” product - this app creates a handy centralized maketplace for it. While I’m all for more responsible consumption, what you’re advocating for requires not just more responsible businesses, but more responsible consumers to make sacrifices to support them, enough to make up the difference in potential lost business. How many people are going to add an extra stop in their errands to visit a business they know is often or even occassionally out of the product they want, when they know another, more wasteful business always has it available?
I guess I disagree that this app helps businesses “do nothing” about food waste- I see it as a way to help (especially small) businesses throw away less food. Can it be abused; can businesses still wildly overproduce? sure, but many were already doing so before this, and will continue to do so as a matter of caring about maximizing profit. that doesn’t take away from the waste the app does help reduce, and the help driving customers to, and breaking even on unsold product it provides small businesses - businesses who are imho more likely than large conglomorates and chains to care about being socially and enviornmentally responsible in other ways, too, not just reducing food waste.
I disagree, at least don’t see that for any of the stores participating in my area. They don’t like overproducing either, everything they throw away is a loss for them. But it’s also difficult to predict how much you’ll be able to sell on any given day. Bakeries for example usually bake only once a day in the early morning and they have to make an educated guess about how much of each item will be sold that day, but it’s never gonna be a perfect guess. Sometimes they’re out early, a few customers will be disappointed and the shop will make a tiny bit less profit that day, and some other times they produce a bit too much that they won’t be able to sell the next day so they’d have to throw it out. I just don’t see how it’s greenwashing trying to avoid that by finding takers for the extra stuff using this app. If someone eats the food then it’s not wasted food.
- it helps that “we produce enough food for everyone but don’t distribute it”, so now we ARE DISTRIBUTING it for very cheap when there is left over. Really seems like a win-win to me.
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The offering is very hit or miss. Obviously, that’s not the platforms fault. It does feel like some of the vendors are taking the piss.
I’ve had everything from total disappointment to “they could’ve given me a third of what I got and I would’ve been happy”.
Still worth trying out to see what’s on offer in your area.
Obviously, that’s not the platforms fault.
Exactly. The platform — at least as a user — is great. However, the vendors do often give out… Well, garbage. Hit or miss, as you put it.
I’ve found a few places nearby that have some pretty solid offerings, to be honest, but I’ve been disappointed a couple of times as well…
Yeah, I’ve tried a bunch of places at first but now I have 4-5 favorite ones that always have good stuff. Some restaurants seem to use the app more as advertisement to get more people visiting, but I think that’s fair too when they offer a meal for half the price in return. Also I never got any bad deals, it was always a good bargain even if I didn’t end up liking what I got. It’s kind of a plus for the app actually in my opinion because that I tried many new places that I’d normally not care about just because they were in the app, and I found some really nice ones this way.
My worst bag ever was full of rotten fruit and veg and I’ve never gone back to that vendor. In all fairness to TGTG, after I spent 3 minutes submitting a complaint in the app they refunded me in full.
It’s a great app and it really does help to avoid waste, but… I know a few businesses that went from donating their leftovers to charities for the poor to selling them through TGTG, because that way, they still make some money off of it.
Our local supermarket I worked at went the same way. Meat with only 1 day left used to be frozen in and picked up by the food bank twice a week, along with all the fresh produce that wasn’t “presentable”. Now it’s sold at 60% off through a similar system.
Used to tear the contents stickers so they couldn’t legally be sold anymore, just so the guys from the food banks collecting wouldnt leave empty handed.
I’ve used this a few times in england. It’s okay for the novelty or if you like eating anything/everything but I have the same criticisms - you’re getting a few random old things they can’t sell. Its usually not a very good deal, just like buying reduced stuff at the supermarket is usually substandard in some way.
There used to be some good deals in the past, but as the demand increased, so did the prices.
I’ve been using the app for a while and had no idea it was a European app. I’m an (embarrassed by my country) American so I’m glad that I’m supporting a European company, and the businesses in my area that use it are all small local businesses.
Still not sure if I like the concept. Technically it should reduce food faste. On the other hand, sellers don’t get punished enough by overproducing. Because now they can sell the left overs, vs. having to throw them away.
A bistro chain near me implemented that app. They offer mixed bags of whatever is left an hour before they close. Sound good but there is a question we should ask a lot more: does this need to be an app? Couldn’t they just discount everything in the last hour? Literally a piece of paper on a door “19:00 - 20:00, - 50%” would do exactly the same. Is it a sign of getting old if I hate unnecessary use of technology?
But if someone buys and eats the food then it’s not wasted, is it?
Yes, it is not wasted in this case. But why should I produce less food the next day, if I can still sell everything? Sure, they earn less, but still enough to cover the costs. So they have no motivation to reduce production, as the financial impact is not as big.
Ok but even if that was the case and they produce too much because they can sell the rest at a discount, it’s not really “too much” if everything gets sold and eaten. Why would they produce less than there’s demand for? I don’t really see a problem as long as the food doesn’t end up in a trash can.
Oh, they’re Danish!
