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Unique new way Aussies can slash grocery bills and solve 'massive' problem: 'Surprise bag for under $7'

Too Good To Go aims to tackle the 7.6 million tonnes of food that's wasted in Australia each year.

Stewart Perrie
·Senior Journalist
Updated ·4-min read
Joost Rietveld next to two women holding bags
A new initiative has launched in Australia called Too Good To Go and it hopes to cut down on the millions of tonnes of food wastage every year. (Source: Supplied)

Food wastage is a "massive" problem in Australia, but a recently launched service aims to combat that while also hugely reducing your food bill. Too Good To Go is available in more than a dozen countries and it has just landed in Melbourne.

It allows bakeries, cafes, restaurants, grocery stores and other businesses to sell their food that would otherwise go in the bin. Too Good To Go country director of Australia, Joost Rietveld, told Yahoo Finance it will no doubt be a huge win for Aussies battling the cost-of-living crisis.

"A lot of businesses are sitting with this challenge of surplus food at the end of the day," he said. "And there are a lot of consumers out there who actually want to contribute and want to do something about this."

Towards the end of the day, small businesses that offer food will usually have to dump whatever they haven't sold. But Too Good To Go allows these businesses to package up "surprise bags" of food so that it doesn't go to waste.

Aussies can get one of these bags for as little as $6.99. They'll usually get food worth two-thirds more than the purchase price, but they won't know what they're getting until they pick it up from the venue.

Rietveld told Yahoo Finance he was recently able to get a bag with $30 worth of bread for just $10.

All you need to do is download the app and you can search for businesses in your area that have signed up for the program.

The supplier can cancel an order at any time if the expected surplus is not available and the purchaser can cancel with two hours' notice. Customers are given a time window that's usually 30 to 60 minutes to pick up the food.

At the moment, Too Good To Go is only available in Melbourne and Aussies can get "surprise bags" from more than 80 retailers. There are plans to expand into Sydney by the end of the year and other Aussie cities are set to follow.

Rietveld revealed to Yahoo Finance that Too Good To Go isn't just helping businesses tackle excess stock.

"What I've noticed with the people that I've spoken to in Australia is that they've seen a lot of new customers come into their store," he said.

"I think that's one of those additional benefits that you don't immediately think about as a small business.

"I spoke to one of the managers at Abacus, and he told me that one of the first people that walked into the store actually came back two days after that and just became a normal customer."

Rahul Arora from Melbourne espresso bar Abacus said they were throwing away up to 40 pastries a day.

He told 7News that he'd far rather sell food for cheaper than for it to go in the bin.

Too Good To Go has already saved 300 million meals since it first launched in Denmark in 2015.

The initiative is available in 18 countries across Europe and North America, with more than 170,000 businesses now offering their food on the platform to avoid wastage.

According to the latest figures, 7.6 million tonnes of food is wasted in Australia every year, which is enough to fill the Melbourne Cricket Ground 10 times over.

Sadly, 70 per cent of this waste is perfectly edible.

"We want to be a big contributor to solving that problem," Rietveld told Yahoo Finance.

"We're not the only ones who can solve this. We can't solve this entire problem by ourselves. It's always a combination of different solutions.

"But I want to make sure that, after being present here and signing up all these businesses, that we make up a significant part of that food waste solution."

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