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Too Good To Go’s “Surprise Bags” are now available at Whole Foods stores.
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When I last spoke with Too Good To Go United States country manager Chris MacAulay in April of last year, he explained the company’s mission is to fight food waste and insecurity by taking perfectly good food that eateries can’t or don’t sell—product that otherwise would be destined for the garbage—by repackaging it into so-called “Surprise Bags” that people can purchase from participating businesses in their local area. The app, available on iOS and Android, has a conceit similar to on-demand food delivery services such as DoorDash or UberEats. But instead of the unused food coming to you, customers use the app to see which restaurants are open and sign up for one of the aforementioned Surprise Bags before picking it up. The app itself is free to download and use, with people paying for something only when they’ve picked up their order.
Too Good To Go (TGTG) and Amazon-owned Whole Foods Market earlier this month announced a partnership aimed at what the companies described as a “national effort to reduce food waste.” The announcement, which occurred last week, sees TGTG’s esteemed Surprise Bags being available for customers at over 450 Whole Foods stores across the nation. The collaboration is touted as setting a “new standard” in advancing significant change in the retail industry, as well as aligning with Whole Foods’ goal to reduce food waste by half by 2030.
The “groundbreaking” initiative offers buyers two choices: a Prepared Foods Surprise Bag containing soups and ready-to-eat meals for $10 or a Bakery Surprise Bag containing bread, cookies, muffins, and scones for $7. The former is valued at $30 while the latter is valued at $21.
In an interview with me conducted earlier this week, MacAulay told me TGTG sees a “broad array” of people who buy Surprise Bags. Broadly speaking, he said most people who do are “very much” aligned with and aware of the environmental and human impact to food waste; they buy Surprise Bags in part to be more sustainability conscious. Likewise, MacAulay noted there’s a “big segment” of TGTG’s user base who like Surprise Bags because they’re a good deal. Buyers, he said, can’t be confident in knowing exactly what they’re getting in their proverbial goodie bags, but can rest assured with “100% confidence” the value proposition is high. TGTG is so popular, MacAulay said there are communities of users who post unboxing videos of their hauls to social media to share the mystery and suspense of what’s inside with others.
When asked why TGTG chose to hook up with Whole Foods, MacAulay said the popular grocer is a “strong brand” and doing a lot of “interesting things” in terms of being a responsible corporate citizen. The work with Whole Foods began about a year ago, as MacAulay said TGTG initiated a pilot program after holding several conversations together about Whole Foods’ own efforts to fight food waste. The pilot began modestly, operating in seven stores across Texas. It was so successful and grew so much, it would make Geppetto and Pinocchio proud. What gestated a year ago has culminated what MacAulay and TGTG have announced.
For its part, MacAulay mentioned Whole Foods has a “shrink reduction focus” whereby the company has its sights set on “reducing waste across the store footprint.” Additionally, Whole Foods runs a program it calls Enjoy Today in which it offers shoppers savings on select items.
“I think our conversations were about incorporating the Too Good To Go marketplace helped to round out the different ways in which they reduce their waste and improve their sustainability,” MacAulay said.
MacAulay praised the Whole Foods team as being “great to work with,” saying they were highly interested when talks began about partnering with TGTG. He expounded further, telling me the pilot phase was instrumental in garnering employee feedback and, at an operational level, how to incorporate the Surprise Bag process into the store’s normal procedures. For its part, MacAulay said TGTG invested a lot of time in extensive training and general awareness of what TGTG is, how it works, and why it does what it does. Whole Foods workers are “appreciative” of the notion that less food is being wasted and more people are being fed. MacAulay also emphasized how customers appreciate them too because, frankly, not everyone has the financial wherewithal to be regular Whole Foods shoppers. The Surprise Bags thus are egalitarian insofar as they allow a wider swath of people to occasionally indulge in higher quality groceries that normally exist beyond their wallet’s grasp. It’s an “incredible” opportunity for people, MacAulay told me, because food obviously is such a unifying force.
The budgetary concerns of shoppers, whether patronizing a farmer’s market or Whole Foods or anyplace else, is a sensitive topic for mostly everyone. As I wrote last year, from an accessibility perspective, to pinch one’s pennies is especially important to many in the disability community. By and large, disabled people don’t make a lot of money, if any at all. To live impoverished is commonplace, with sustenance support often coming from governmental social services like Social Security and food stamps. Similarly, many disabled people who perhaps can afford weekly trips to Whole Foods may not always be able to prepare the food once it gets into their kitchen. In this context, that the Surprise Bags are full of ready-to-eat meals can be worth their weight in gold. It belies the notion the food was ostensibly extra or no good.
Looking towards the future, MacAulay said TGTG wants but one thing: a planet with zero food waste. It turns out reducing food waste is a good way to reduce food insecurity, with MacAulay telling me TGTG is steadfastly committed to combatting both and raising as much awareness as possible. The plan is to try to establish more partnerships like the one with Whole Foods; MacAulay said the mission isn’t something TGTG can complete by itself. To that end, the company is currently “actively working” to expand its presence in the United States.
More growth means less waste and more inroads on TGTG’s mission.
“We’ve grown quite a bit over the last few years and continue to grow,” MacAulay said of TGTG’s future hopes and dreams. “We’re looking to add more grocers: large scale grocers, national chains, and independent restaurants and businesses. Everything from your local pizzeria and bagel shop to national grocers like Whole Foods is our goal.”
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