Entrepreneurs founded the app in Copenhagen in 2015 after watching an untouched buffet being thrown away.<\/p>\n
Too Good To Go has since expanded across Europe, North America, Australia and now New Zealand. <\/p>\n
Rietveld said the app was launched in Auckland in October. The team had seen early interest and people in New Zealand downloaded the app faster than people in Canadian and United States markets. <\/p>\n
The app has so far attracted 80,000 New Zealand users. Rietveld said this meant more than 65,000 meals had been \u201csaved\u201d in six months, and 350 food businesses had joined. <\/p>\n
Too Good To Go aims to help New Zealand halve its food waste by 2030.<\/p>\n
Rietveld said the strong early demand allowed the nationwide rollout to move quickly.<\/p>\n
New Zealand\u2019s uptake of surprise bags was immediately strong.<\/p>\n
\u201cUsually it takes us quite a while before people know about it, understand the concept, and start sharing it with each other,\u201d Rietveld said. <\/p>\n
\u201cIn New Zealand, that was instant. And that\u2019s quite unique.”<\/p>\n
Rietveld said rising food prices meant users were including surprise bags in their weekly food shop. <\/p>\n
A $10 bakery bag could contain up to $30 worth of bread that could last several days or be frozen. <\/p>\n
Rietveld said New Zealand had a $3 billion annual food-waste problem, and wants to contribute to the goal to halve it by 2030, in line with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re not going to be the ones that\u2019s going to deliver that big ambitious number, but we want to contribute to it.”<\/p>\n
He said he hoped businesses would rethink the assumption that unsold food must be thrown away and instead adopt a more sustainable approach. <\/p>\n
\u201cWhat I really love is when businesses start to get a different perspective on that and think, \u2018Hey, there are different ways to run my food business\u2019.”<\/p>\n
Baker\u2019s Delight national area manager Scott Randles said the chain joined to better manage leftover food. <\/p>\n
Too Good To Go New Zealand country director Joost Rietveld.<\/p>\n
He said it helped franchisees recover costs while giving customers access to quality products at a lower price.<\/p>\n
The partnership had been popular, Randles said, with strong demand and a straightforward rollout. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s practical, and it makes sense for both the customer and the business.\u201d<\/p>\n
New research from Kai Commitment, a food-waste reduction programme, showed that one\u2011third of New Zealand food businesses believed their waste was under control. <\/p>\n
Interim executive director Carmen Doran said food waste was often seen as a sustainability issue. However, the research findings showed that it was a business performance problem.<\/p>\n
What\u2019s in a bag?<\/p>\n
A surprise bag from Blomquists Bakery contained nearly 750g of baked goods for $6.99. <\/p>\n
The Bay of Plenty Times ordered a $6.99 surprise bag from Blomquists Bakers in Greerton on Thursday. <\/p>\n
The bag contained nearly 750g of baked goods, including three cold desserts (iced rolls with and without cream, a filled doughnut) and three warm savouries (a pizza slice, sausage roll and mince pie). <\/p>\n
The mince pie alone is listed on their website for $5.90. <\/p>\n
Zoe Blake is a multimedia journalist at the Bay of Plenty Times and Rotorua Daily Post. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Entrepreneurs founded the app in Copenhagen in 2015 after watching an untouched buffet being thrown away. Too Good…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":550780,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[26557,19678,1991,37409,5773,1776,718,29882,2306,28654,117324,38268,86,1850,57967,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-550779","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mobile","8":"tag-app","9":"tag-arrives","10":"tag-food","11":"tag-go","12":"tag-good","13":"tag-in","14":"tag-international","15":"tag-launched","16":"tag-mobile","17":"tag-rescue","18":"tag-surplus","19":"tag-tauranga","20":"tag-technology","21":"tag-to","22":"tag-too","23":"tag-uk","24":"tag-united-kingdom","25":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/550779","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=550779"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/550779\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/550780"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=550779"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=550779"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=550779"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}