An app aims to divert food waste and impact climate change

A. sent a note about a new app — Too Good To Go — that aims to divert food waste by connecting customers with businesses that have leftover food. She spotted a Times article about it, then joined the app to see what local spots are participating. It’s a good list — see below.

Using the app, restaurants are able to sell their leftover food at deeply discounted prices (the app gets a cut) in an effort to create less garbage and reduce climate change. (Food waste is a major contributor to greenhouse gas emissions — and the carbon footprint of U.S. food waste is greater than that of the airline industry.)

The bags are often a surprise; I have yet to try it but I logged on today and saw that you could get, for instance, a vegetarian surprise at Nish Nush for $4.99, or bagels and spreads at Black Seed for $4.99. Each restaurant specifies a pickup window of an hour.

Maman started partnering with the app three months ago to reduce food waste but to also “attract new types of consumers and customers to our mamans,” said Camille Schoeb. “It enables people who might not be able to afford maman pastries regularly to purchase them at a friendly price at the end of the day.”

Camille said that in the past 12 weeks, maman has saved 6300 surprise bags, serving two to four people a day, which she translates to 15.7 tons of C02 from being emitted in the atmosphere. It also means more exposure for the restaurant.

Other participants:
Le Pain Quotidien
Grandaisy
Café Atelier
Nish Nush
Benares
Chanson Le Salon
Machaful – Canal
Think Coffee – Tribeca
Blue Bottle Coffee – The Walker
Crispy Heaven Bakery
Hummus & Pita Co. – 79 Chambers
Gunbae
Tartinery – Brookfield Place
Black Seed – Brookfield Place
Pick a Bagel – Battery Park
Pi Bakerie – Broome Street
Laduree – Soho
Saturdays NYC
Maman – Tribeca
Maman – Hudson
Maman – Soho

 

 

7 Comments

  1. Black Seed’s surprise bag yesterday contained 11 assorted bagels and I think a 4 oz container of cream cheese, woohoo! Very fresh.

  2. Been using it for over a year.

    Nish Nush will give you an entire container of food from that day for $4.99. Essentially a full-priced meal.

    Laduree Soho – The bakery bag will give you 3-4 pastries. The savory bag, I haven’t tried.

    Maman – all locations – will give you 3-4 pastries.

    Haven’t tried other ones.

  3. Address the process rather than the outcome. Then, the outcome becomes more likely

  4. I think I’m missing something on the math regarding Maman’s pastries. 6300 surprise bags over 12 weeks is an average of 525 bags/week, or 75 bags/day. Does that mean that 2-4 people are buying all 75 bags a day?

    Perhaps I’m reading this wrong or some people are eating a lot of pastries?

    • They prepared that many, but that is not to say that many people came to get them…

    • Surprisingly, Maman has 24 locations so the math ends up working out, more or less. Very sick of bagels now :(

      • Oh that makes perfect sense I didn’t realize how much they had expanded. That’s great, I love that place.

        Disappointed though that there isn’t someone walking the streets of New York who eats 50 pastries a day. Would have liked to be friends with that person. Did you eat all 11 bagels? That would be a close runner-up.

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