Originally from Copenhagen, Denmark, the food waste app Too Good To Go secured a further €6 million in funding, raising €16 million all together. The latest round was led by existing investors and the board of directors including Preben Damgaard, co-founder of Navision (which was sold to Microsoft in 2002), Mike Lee, founder and former CEO of MyFitnessPal, and Jesper Lindhardt, former COO at Trustpilot.
The startup intends to use the funds to fuel its mission to “eliminate food waste globally”. The company plans to expand to 4 new countries this year in order to rescue projected 100 million meals by the end of 2020.
Win-Win Solution for Customers, Businesses and the Planet
Users can download the Too Good To Go app for free and it works on iOS as well as Android devices. This allows them find all partner stores nearby and rescue the surplus food with just one click. Then, the customers can come to pick up the surprise box at a certain time with all the food that hasn’t been sold during the day.
Since launching in Copenhagen in 2016, Too Good To Go has grown to 7.5 million users across nine countries in Europe, working with over 15,000 food retailers including Carrefour, Accor Hotels, YO! Sushi, Mandarin Oriental and Scandic.
10 Million Meals Rescued
According to Too Good To Go, the company managed to rescue 10 million meals so far. These include the perfectly edible meals its users have rescued from being thrown away. When translated into the amount of emissions, the app has saved the equivalent of 10,000 tonnes of food or 20,000 of CO2 emissions from wasted food production.
One third of all food produced is currently being wasted, according to Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. That is why the CEO of Too Good To GO, Mette Lykke, aims to create a global movement to tackle this issue. Prior to starting with Too Good To Go, Mette co-founded Endomondo, a social fitness community with 35 million users which was sold to Under Armour for $85 million (around €75,4 million) in 2015.
From “Best before” to “Best before, not bad after”
To promote the importance of reducing home food waste, the startup is petitioning to change date labelling on food in France. They aim to change the label from “Best before” to “Best before, not bad after”. To date, 60,000 people have signed the petition with public support from supermarket chain, Carrefour.
Mette Lykke, CEO of Too Good To Go, said “Too Good To Go has a unique opportunity to tackle a very serious environmental issue with a smart business model. Across the value chain and across borders, the issue of food waste is complex and hard to fix. By creating a new market for surplus food, we ensure more food gets eaten, making businesses and consumers winners in the process.
“The reality is that it’s standard practice for food businesses to throw away perfectly edible food. We give them the flexibility to offer up anything that’s still good to eat and sell it to consumers through the app at a discounted price. It’s a win for retailers, because they reduce waste, acquire customers and increase revenue, it’s a win for consumers who get great food for a reduced price, and it’s obviously a win for the environment which is our main motivation.”
Too Good To Go is a signatory of the Courtauld Commitment 2025, which brings together leading organisations working towards the UN’s goal of halving food waste by 2030. It has also committed to the WRAP Food Waste Reduction Roadmap, which aims to reduce business food waste in the UK.