I Spent a Week Eating Discarded Restaurant Food. But Was It Really Going to Waste?

It’s 10 p.m. connected a Wednesday nighttime and I’m lasting successful Blessed, a southbound London takeaway joint, half-listening to a chap lawsuit talking earnestly astir Jesus. I’m nodding along, trying to wage attraction arsenic reggae reverberates astir the tiny yellowish store front. But really, each I tin truly deliberation astir is: What’s successful the bag?

Today’s container is bluish plastic. A smiling antheral passes it implicit the counter. Only erstwhile I extricate myself from the spiritual lecture and get location bash I observe what’s inside: Caribbean saltfish, achromatic rice, vegetables, and a cupful of thick, brownish porridge.

All week, I’ve lived disconnected mysterious packages similar this one, handed implicit by cafés, takeaways, and restaurants crossed London. Inside is nutrient erstwhile destined for the bin. Instead, I’ve rescued it utilizing Too Good To Go, a Danish app that is surging successful popularity, selling implicit 120 million meals past twelvemonth and expanding accelerated successful the US. For 5 days, I decided to divert my play nutrient fund to devour exclusively done the app, paying betwixt £3 and £6 (about $4 to $8) for meals that scope from a fistful of cakes to a elephantine container of groceries, successful an effort to recognize what a tech institution tin thatch maine astir nutrient discarded successful my ain city.

Users who unfastened the TGTG app are presented with a database of establishments that either person nutrient going spare close present oregon expect to successful the adjacent future. Provided is simply a little statement of the restaurant, a price, and a clip slot. Users wage done the app, but this is not a transportation service. Surprise bags—customers person lone a vague thought of what’s wrong earlier they buy—have to beryllium collected successful person.

I commencement my experimentation astatine 9:30 connected a Monday morning, successful the glistening lobby of the Novotel Hotel, steps distant from the River Thames. Of each the meal options disposable the nighttime before, this was the astir convenient—en way to my bureau and offering a pickup slot that means I tin marque my 10 americium meeting. When I accidental I’m present for TGTG, a suited receptionist nods and gestures toward the meal buffet. This subdivision of the Novotel is simply a £200-a-night hotel, yet unit bash not look begrudging of the £4.50 introduction interest I paid successful speech for leftover breakfast. A stateless foundation tells maine its clients similar the app for precisely that reason; inexpensive food, without the stigma. A server politely hands implicit my white-plastic astonishment container with 2 polystyrene boxes inside, arsenic if I americium immoderate different guest.

I unfastened the boxes successful my office. One is filled with mini pastries, portion the different is overflowing with Full English. Two fried eggs beryllium atop a upland of scrambled eggs. Four sausages jostle for abstraction with a assemblage of mushrooms. I diligently commencement eating—a wound of acold fried egg, a mouthful of mushrooms, each 4 sausages. I decorativeness with a croissant. This is capable to marque maine consciousness intensely full, verging connected sick, truthful I donate the croissants to the bureau room and extremity the remainder into the bin. This feels similar a disappointing start. I americium expected to beryllium rescuing discarded food, not throwing it away.

Over the adjacent 2 days, I unrecorded similar a forager successful my city, molding my days astir pickups. I locomotion and rhythm to cafés, restaurants, markets, supermarkets; to acquainted haunts and places I’ve ne'er noticed. Some astonishment bags past for lone 1 meal, others tin beryllium stretched retired for days. On Tuesday morning, my £3.59 astonishment container includes a tiny barroom and a somewhat stale sourdough loaf, which provides meal for 3 much days. When I spell backmost to the aforesaid café the pursuing week, without utilizing the app, the loaf unsocial costs £6.95.

TGTG was founded successful Copenhagen successful 2015 by a radical of Danish entrepreneurs who were irked by however overmuch nutrient was wasted by all-you-can-eat buffets. Their thought to repurpose that discarded rapidly took off, and the app’s remit expanded to see restaurants and supermarkets. A twelvemonth aft the institution was founded, Mette Lykke was sitting connected a autobus erstwhile a pistillate showed her the app and however it worked. She was truthful impressed, she reached retired to the institution to inquire if she could help. Lykke has present been CEO for six years.

“I conscionable hatred wasting resources,” she says. “It was conscionable this win-win-win concept.” To her, the restaurants triumph due to the fact that they get paid for nutrient they would person different thrown away; the lawsuit wins due to the fact that they get a bully woody portion simultaneously discovering caller places; and the situation wins because, she says, nutrient discarded contributes 10 percent of our planetary greenhouse state emissions. When thrown-away nutrient rots successful a landfill, it releases methane into the atmosphere—with homes and restaurants the 2 largest contributors.

But the app doesn’t permission maine with the content I'm redeeming the planet. Instead, I consciousness much similar I’m connected a regular treasure hunt for discounted food. On Wednesday, TGTG leads maine to a railway arch which functions arsenic a depot for the market transportation app Gorillas. Before I’ve adjacent uttered the words “Too Good To Go,” a teen with an overgrown fringe emerges silently from the alleys of shelving units with this evening’s bag: groceries, galore inactive days distant from expiring, that suspiciously adhd up to make an full repast for 2 people. For £5.50, I person caller pasta, pesto, cream, bacon, leeks, and a container of stir-fry vegetables, which my hubby merges into a azygous (delicious) pasta dish. It feels excessively convenient to beryllium genuine waste. Perhaps Gorillas is attempting to person maine into its ain customer? When I inquire its genitor company, Getir, however selling nutrient good successful day helps combat nutrient waste, the institution does not reply to my email.

I americium inactive reasoning astir my Gorillas acquisition astatine lunchtime connected Thursday arsenic I travel the app’s directions to the Wowshee falafel marketplace stall, wherever 14 others are already queuing down the street. A fewer casual conversations later, I recognize I americium 1 of astatine slightest 4 TGTG users successful the line. Seeing truthful galore of america successful 1 spot again makes maine wonderment if restaurants are conscionable utilizing the app arsenic a signifier of advertising. But Wowshee proprietor Ahmed El Shimi describes the selling benefits arsenic lone a “little bonus.” For him, the app’s main gully is it helps chopped down waste. “We get to merchantability the merchandise that we were going to propulsion distant anyway,” helium says. “And it saves the situation astatine the aforesaid time.” El Shimi, who says helium sells astir 20 astonishment bags per day, estimates utilizing TGTG reduces the magnitude of nutrient the stall wastes by astir 60 percent. When I wage £5 for 2 portions of falafel—which lasts for luncheon and dinner—the concern receives £3.75 earlier tax, El Shimi says. “It's not much, but it's amended than nothing.”

On Friday, my last time of the experiment, everything falls apart. I slumber severely and aftermath up late. The loaf from earlier successful the week is stone solid. I devour respective mini pome pies for breakfast, which were portion of a generous £3.09 Morrisons supermarket haul the nighttime before. Browsing the app, thing appeals to me, and adjacent if it did I’m excessively bushed to look leaving the location to cod it. After 4 days of eating thing but discarded food, I ace and question solace successful acquainted ingredients buried successful my cupboard: 2 fried eggs connected my favourite marque of seeded brownish bread.

TGTG is not a solution for convenience. For me, the app is an reply for bureau luncheon malaise. It pulled maine retired of my lazy regular portion helping maine devour well—in cardinal London—for a £5 budget. In the queue for falafel, I met a chap app idiosyncratic who told maine how, earlier she discovered the app, she would devour the aforesaid sandwich from the aforesaid supermarket for luncheon each day. For radical without entree to a kitchen, it offers a transportation to an underworld of blistery nutrient going spare.