In Hammond, Ind., Jerry Wash, a retired railroad ticket agent, said he regularly looked to see what’s available at his local Meijer. “We wake up in the morning, you know, most people are checking their social media,” he said. “We’re checking Flashfood.”
Mr. Wash said he and his wife, Jody, didn’t shop at the regular clearance sections of grocery stores, describing sale food as “bruised” and “bad.” More recently, he said, they’ve been planning meals around what’s available on the app.
Josh Domingues, the company’s founder and chief executive, acknowledged that he had recreated the clearance rack on people’s phones, but he said the presentation was key. “This food is not segregated in the back corner, that, like, almost makes you feel smaller for going to pick through,” he said. Instead, blue, branded fridges sit in the front of grocery stores with signs encouraging people to help fight food waste.
Too Good To Go has tried to gamify buying leftover food. In the United States, customers in 12 cities can browse restaurants and stores, then reserve “surprise bags” that typically cost about $4 to $6 and contain food that would have been originally priced at roughly three times that amount. The bags can be picked up at a certain time window. Too Good To Go takes $1.79 per bag and charges partners an annual fee of $89.
Jennifer Rexrode, a tax analyst in Austin, heard about the app in May. “A friend of mine posted a picture of their food that they got from Too Good To Go from a local barbecue restaurant where they got a bunch of ribs,” she said. “And I’m like, I want a bunch of ribs! And so, I signed up.”
