Purves, 32, told the Waikato Herald she sold surprise bags, containing unsold food worth about $15, for $4.99. <\/p>\n
The items could range from muffins and cookies to pies and scones. <\/p>\n
Surprise Bags give customers access to quality food that would otherwise go to waste.<\/p>\n
Purves has owned Sweet Beans since September last year and registered on the app in April. <\/p>\n
She believes Tamahere is a \u201chigh-earning\u201d place, but said the app provided access to a \u201cdifferent group\u201d of people. <\/p>\n
The best customer interaction she had was with a single mother, who said the surprise bags were the \u201cbest part\u201d of the week for her and her son.<\/p>\n
She said the mum told her: \u201cIt\u2019s the only time that we can afford to have a takeout treat, and we go to the park and eat it together.\u201d<\/p>\n
Purves considers herself \u201cvery passionate\u201d about food waste. At a former job, she saw large amounts of food wasted every day. <\/p>\n
She knew then that her next job would involve reducing waste, so once she opened Sweet Beans, she looked for ways to do so. <\/p>\n
Ayla Purves is “super passionate” about reducing food waste. Photo \/ Malisha Kumar <\/p>\n
There were times during the day when she knew not to make any more food, but she still left with end-of-day waste.<\/p>\n
Since joining Too Good To Go, she believes less food has been trashed. <\/p>\n
\u201cI am super passionate about food waste. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s been a good step for me, moving to a platform that focuses on sustainability and food waste.\u201d<\/p>\n
Other Waikato businesses registered<\/p>\n
In Hamilton, Jesters Pies, Muffin Break and Katsubi have registered on the app. <\/p>\n
Across the Waikato, Cafe Luv in Huntly, Number Three Cafe in Te Awamutu, and Bakers Delight in Taup\u014d have signed up. <\/p>\n
Scott Randles, national area manager for Bakers Delight, said managing end-of-day product had always been a \u201cconsistent focus\u201d. <\/p>\n
The organisation\u2019s daily leftovers had \u201ctraditionally\u201d supported local charities, and would continue to do so with the app.<\/p>\n
\u201c[The app] complements this by giving franchisees a way to recover some of those costs, while attracting new customers to try our products.\u201d<\/p>\n
Randles said there was a demand for the app in Taup\u014d. <\/p>\n
\u201cOverall, it\u2019s a really positive balance, supporting the community and reducing waste.\u201d <\/p>\n
Too Good To Go New Zealand country director Joost Rietveld says Kiwi uptake has been strong from day one.<\/p>\n
High demand in NZ and Australia<\/p>\n
The app was founded in 2015 in Copenhagen by entrepreneurs who set out to find a solution for the \u201cmassive amounts\u201d of food waste in Denmark. <\/p>\n
It has since expanded to 20 countries across Europe, North America and Australia.<\/p>\n
Since launching in New Zealand, about 77,000 surprise bags have been sold nationwide. <\/p>\n
There are 450 businesses registered and about 84,000 app users so far.<\/p>\n
Too Good to Go New Zealand country director Joost Rietveld said the app launch came at a \u201ccritical time\u201d for Kiwis, with food prices up 4.5% annually. <\/p>\n
Demand for the app in Australia and New Zealand was high.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf I compare both those countries with the other countries that we operate in, in the world, then those two are operating higher.<\/p>\n
\u201cI guess the solution that they see in this very easy-to-use aspect [is] to influence their food budget.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said the planet was a \u201cbig winner\u201d when food wasn\u2019t wasted.<\/p>\n
Malisha Kumar is a multimedia journalist based in Hamilton. She joined the Waikato Herald in 2023 after working for Radio 1XX in Whakat\u0101ne.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Purves, 32, told the Waikato Herald she sold surprise bags, containing unsold food worth about $15, for $4.99.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":429423,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[24744,95,2724,1882,48706,23159,8615,802,3588,299,156,564,29419,6101,34888,29137,111,139,69,10521,32260,61,6173,28066,1524,25361,1354],"class_list":["post-430633","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-amount","tag-and","tag-app","tag-cafe","tag-cafes","tag-challenging","tag-come","tag-costs","tag-cut","tag-dream","tag-entertainment","tag-food","tag-go","tag-good","tag-helps","tag-keeping","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-opening","tag-proved","tag-to","tag-too","tag-true","tag-waikato","tag-waste","tag-woman"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/430633","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=430633"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/430633\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/429423"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=430633"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=430633"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=430633"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}