What it is
Too Good To Go is a mobile app connecting users with restaurants, bakeries, grocery stores, and cafes selling surplus food at a discount (typically 60 to 80% off). Users browse available 'Surprise Bags' near them, pay through the app, and pick up the food during a specified window. The bags contain a mix of items the business could not sell that day. Available in 19 countries with over 100 million registered users and 300,000+ partner businesses as of 2025.
Why we picked this
Food waste is the number one solution by CO2 impact in the Project Drawdown rankings. Too Good To Go addresses this at the retail and restaurant level, where approximately 30% of all food produced is wasted. The app works because it aligns incentives: businesses recover revenue from food they would otherwise throw away, users get quality food at steep discounts, and the planet benefits from reduced methane emissions from landfill decomposition. The Surprise Bag model is clever: it requires no extra work from the business beyond packing whatever is left.
Key takeaways
- The app has saved over 350 million Surprise Bags from going to waste since launch, equivalent to preventing roughly 900,000 tonnes of CO2 equivalent emissions.
- The average Surprise Bag costs $4 to $6 and contains $15 to $20 worth of food, making sustainability directly financially beneficial for users.
- Food waste in landfills generates methane, a greenhouse gas 80 times more potent than CO2 over 20 years. Diverting food waste is one of the highest-impact personal actions.