An app that connects people with fresh leftover restaurant, bakery and grocery food at a deep discount at dozens of businesses is making a push in Connecticut.
In turn, those businesses earn money for food that is fresh but would have otherwise been thrown out.
“Too Good to Go,” as the app is called, has worked nicely at Georgie’s Kitchen in Manchester, a soul food take-out restaurant that has received rave reviews from food influencers and customers.
Owner Allison Byrd said not only has the app served existing customers well, but it’s brought in new customers who first got a taste of her food through the app, which has been operating in Connecticut for a few years.
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Byrd said what comes in the bag to be picked up at the restaurant is a surprise.
Her place is popular and the food cooked to order, so they don’t have too many leftovers, but she’ll typically makes up plates of mac and cheese, chicken, cabbage, and yams. If there’s a piece of uncooked fish for the day she’ll cook it up and put that in too.
App customers pick up at a special window near closing between 7 and 7:30 p.m.
The app offers different “surprise bag” price points, but at Georgie’s Kitchen they get $18 worth of food for $5.99.
“Instead of my throwing out food they get it at a discount,” she said.
One woman who is a customer, but also comes in for surprise bags, told Byrd, “Me and my daughter fight over it.”
Others who use the app tell Byrd, “We’re glad we found you.”
Although Too Good To Go officials announced the launching of the program on Nov. 13, they’ve actually been in Connecticut for a few years.
This is a reboot of sorts to let more consumers know and attract more eateries and grocery stores, said Sarah Soteroff, spokesperson for Too Good To Go North America. Whole Foods is a participant, she said.
Soteroff said they have about 75 restaurants, bakeries, grocery stores that participate in Connecticut, including 40 in Hartford, 30 in New Haven.
The food in the various bag price points is about 1/3 of retail costs.
“The consumer gets great food at a super deep discount,” she said.
The company was founded in 2016 and now operates in 19 countries and all of the United States.
The app is a success, Soteroff said.
Across country, 17 million bags of food have been purchased and consumers have saved $162 million, according to the company, For businesses, it’s helped them earn them more than $52 million, she said.
At the core of the company is a mission of minimizing the environmental impacts of surplus food waste.
According to its website, since its launch in 2016, Too Good To Go has helped to save over 350 million meals from going to waste.
Too Good To Go bills itself as the “world’s largest marketplace for surplus food.”
