Dive Brief:
- Whole Foods Market has partnered with Too Good To Go to make excess food available for purchase at a reduced price for customers, according to a Wednesday announcement.
- More than 450 of the specialty grocer’s stores are now connected to the food waste company’s app.
- This partnership is Whole Foods’ latest effort as it works to cut food waste in half by 2030, and comes as other grocers have forged similar partnerships aimed at reducing the amount of perishable food they throw away.
Dive Insight:
Whole Foods’ tie-up with Too Good To Go stretches nationwide, allowing customers to purchase “Surprise Bags” containing surplus food from nearby Whole Foods stores.
Too Good To Go, a Denmark-based company, provides food retail partners a platform to sell bags of soon-to-expire but still edible excess food through its mobile app. The company uses its app to notify customers when stores have available bags and let them confirm they will pick up the food.,
Whole Foods customers can choose between Prepared Foods Surprise Bags that offer soups and ready-to-eat meals, or Bakery Surprise Bags that include breads, muffins, scones and cookies. The prepared food bags will be priced at $9.99 for $30 worth of goods, while the bakery bags will be sold for $6.99 for $21 worth of items, according to the press release.
Too Good To Go, which has more than 100 million registered users across the globe, noted that its work with Whole Foods will simplify surplus food management for the specialty grocer. Along with Whole Foods, Too Good To Go has partnerships with New York City-based grocer Gourmet Garage and convenience store chain Circle K.
This partnership builds on Whole Foods’ food donations efforts, which include nearly 34 million pounds of food given to food programs across the U.S., Caitlin Leibert, the grocer’s vice president of sustainability, said in a statement. Recently, the grocer revised its standards for animal welfare and third-party certifications for meat products sold in its stores.
