App sells Calgarians food that restaurants didn’t sell but don't want to waste

For many businesses in the food service industry, product prepared and ready to sell that doesn't get purchased is typically thrown out at the end of the day.

But throwing out unsold food doesn't just hurt the business financially, it's also hard on the environment.

It's with that in mind that the Too Good To Go app was created, now active in 17 countries worldwide – including Canada.

"We're a free app connecting consumers with stores that have surplus food left at the end of the day," said spokesperson Sam Kashani. "So consumers can open up the app, use the map feature and discover local businesses in their in their local neighbourhoods, go in during a defined pickup window and pick up what we call a 'surprise bag.'"

Kashani says those bags are filled with all kinds of surplus food that a store has left at the end of the day that consumers get at a third of the price.

"The model has been so successful, it's simply because it's win-win-win," he said. "Consumers win because they get great food at a third of the value, stores win because they sell that surplus food, drive incremental traffic to the store and also make incremental revenue, and more importantly, being a social impact company, the planet wins because we avoid throwing out perfectly healthy, delicious, edible food."

Annalie Ibarra is the owner of Chunk'd Cookies in Kensington and will be celebrating the store's one-year anniversary in May.

She signed up to the app after hearing about it from family in Spain who are using it there.

"When you have leftovers, you'd never want to throw that out. At first we gave (surplus cookies) to our neighbors and friends, and then at some point, everyone was like, 'okay, that's enough' so this was a good solution for that for sure."

Now Ibarra and her staff will post how many bags are available for app users and they can come get them the following day.

"The cookies are perfectly okay the next day, they're just not fresh from that day, they're not going to be perfect, so we love that people are taking advantage of this."

Aaron Lee just graduated from university and downloaded the app onto his phone.

"I hate wasting food and this is actually very affordable as a good snack," he said. "I'm getting a lot for just day-old food."

Lee likes the idea that he's helping the environment by keeping edible food out of the landfill.

"It makes me just really happy to be able to receive just this sweet deal you know," said Lee. "All the deals and saving money, saving food, I'm about that."

The app is so successful in Calgary that organizers say they are having a hard time keeping up with demand.

"Yeah, my message really is encouraging all businesses that have any surplus food to reach out to us," said Kashani.

"Under the business section, just give us your name and an email and we'll reach out, usually within minutes, if not in the same day. So whether you have one slice of pizza or a croissant or you have as a grocery store, you may have a lot of surplus food left at the end of the day, we'd be happy to work with you and get you to a zero waste."

To learn more about the app you can visit the Too Good To Go website.