What’s in that grocery bag? Surprise! It’s food that’s about to expire. At least it was cheap. Now just be sure you eat it right away.
Two companies aiming to cut down on food waste have both announced major expansions that will help you save money while keeping perfectly good, if slightly dated, food out of the trash.
The first expansion involves “Surprise Bags” that will be showing up soon at a Whole Foods Market near you, if they haven’t already. The company Too Good To Go has launched its newest effort at more than 450 Whole Foods stores across the country. The “surprise” is that you don’t know what’s in the bags when you buy them for $6.99 or $9.99 each. What you do know, is that they’re filled with “surplus food items” – otherwise known as about-to-expire food items – that are still good to eat, if you act fast, and are more than 60% off regular price.
The $6.99 “Bakery Surprise Bags” contain a selection of breads, muffins, scones and/or cookies. The $9.99 “Prepared Foods Surprise Bags” feature soups and ready-to-eat meals. Picky eaters who don’t like surprises may not be the target audience – but savvy shoppers who like saving big money just might be. They just need to download and purchase the bags through the Too Good To Go app, which will also give them access to more discounted surplus food offers from other local shops and restaurants.
“We continue to invest in new and innovative ways to keep unsold food out of our landfills and empower our customers to make environmentally conscious choices,” Whole Foods Market’s Vice President of Sustainability Caitlin Leibert said in a statement, adding that the retailer is “so excited to expand that work with the help of Too Good To Go.”
“This collaboration allows us to give millions of consumers across the country a simple way to join the fight against food waste,” Too Good To Go’s Vice President of North American Operations Chris MacAulay added.
Not to be outdone, another company offering a similar service has launched a major expansion of its own. Flashfood, which connects shoppers with soon-to-be-discarded fresh produce, meat and other groceries at prices up to half off, is launching an effort that could increase the number of its partner stores tenfold.
Flashfood already works with more than 2,200 chain grocery stores. Now, it’s launching Flashfood for Independents, so the estimated 27,000 independently-owned grocery stores across the country can participate in the program as well. The program has launched with about ten independent grocery stores, with plans to expand to more than 100 by the end of the year, and potentially thousands more in the years to come.
Flashfood says its aim is not only to reduce food waste, and to help shoppers save money, but to bring its retail partners more businesses. Participating grocers, it says, throw away 27% less food, with participating shoppers making at least one additional trip to the store per month, and spending $20 more each month with that retailer than they otherwise might.
The “harsh and competitive retail climate right now is particularly difficult for independent grocers,” Flashfood CEO Nicholas Bertram said in a statement. “Our goal with this launch is to offer a supporting lifeline to these businesses… Our hope is to empower these grocers with a solution that brings more shoppers in-store and puts money back in their bottom line.”
Too Good To Go also emphasizes the benefits for its retail partners, pointing out that 61% of its app users said they visited a store specifically to purchase a Surprise Bag, and 41% of them made additional purchases while they were there.
Grocery shoppers looking for bargains have long known to check out the clearance section or to look for bright-colored discount stickers on fresh food packages that are nearing their expiration dates. In recent years, companies like Too Good To Go and Flashfood have emerged to formalize and simplify the process, allowing you to browse and purchase these discounted food products right from your phone.
Already, both companies say they’re making a big difference. Too Good To Go says it’s helped save more than 300 million meals from being wasted. Flashfood says it’s diverted more than 100 million pounds from landfills, saving shoppers $280 million in the process. And now, the next time you shop at your local independent grocery store, or at the nearest Whole Foods, you could do your small part to ensure these efforts to combat food waste will have an even greater impact.
Image source: Too Good To Go
