Regina and Saskatoon can now access a new app that will help reduce food waste — a win-win for both consumers and food vendors.
Too Good To Go is an app that started in 2016 in 17 countries and is now available in the Prairies. Instead of restaurants and food-related businesses throwing out surplus food, consumers can get it at a cheaper price and save it from landfills.
A co-owner of Puffsey Cafe, a Japanese restaurant in downtown Saskatoon, said the app is beneficial for both the consumer and retailers.
“For a customer, they can get like one-third of the price,” said Ken Yang. “For us, we have to throw it out anyway as a waste. So, more or less, we get some money back…. Everything is made that day, so we don’t want to waste it, so we sell it for like a cheaper price.”
Surplus foods are turned into surprise bags featured on the Too Good To Go App. Yang said they had to toss out items such as curry, noodles and rice in the past but thanks to the app, they will no longer be throwing away food. They started selling surprise bags to consumers when the app became available in Saskatoon.
“They go so generally fast,” he said. “Once we have a post on, after three to four hours, it’s gone.”
John Bailey, the Regina Food Bank CEO, said with inflation and the price of foods these days, anything that will allow folks to get access to food at a lower price is a good thing.
“We know that a lot of folks are struggling with some of those household economic pressures,” said Bailey. “Anything that sort of allows folks to have more control over their food spend is really important…. This is something that allows folks to access that and sort of keep them from needing to access things like the food bank.”
Bailey is not sure if the Too Good To Go app will help folks with food insecurity and said that only time will tell whether it will provide much relief for the food bank.
“It will certainly help folks lower their costs for groceries, which is different than food insecurity,” he said. “We have a number of people in our city and across our province that are really tight with their household budget. So, it will be helpful in that sense.”
While the app is designed to cut down on waste in landfills, it’s also helping out those navigating food-flation.
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