The food app helping you save the Planet: Too Good to Go turns food waste into business.
According to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation, one-third of the world’s food is wasted.
When ranked alongside countries, food waste is the world’s third-largest producer of carbon dioxide after the USA and China.
“I was not fully aware of how big of an issue in society food waste really is. After doing more research I was shocked to learn about its climate impact. “That was mind-blowing to me.” These are the words of Mette Lykke: the danish entrepreneur who decided that: “it was time to change direction” and left the stability of a well-paid job (she was working for the management consultancy company McKinsey), for investing in a start-up, launched by five young danish entrepreneurs.
“I was missing the feeling of having a real impact,” she says.
She found the start-up “so exciting”, that she invested and joined Too Good To Go as chief executive in 2016.
The platform provides a marketplace that connects businesses, which have surplus food, with consumers looking for rescue these meals.
Rather than being discarded at the end of the day, these foods can be purchased at a reduced retail price and collected by customers in-store and at a pre-set time.
The firm, which now employs 450 people, operates in 13 European countries, is one of Europe’s fastest-growing apps, with 18 million users and is gaining an additional 45,000 daily.
Customers range from bargain-hunting students to environmentally-conscious young families, while women over 50 are another big market.
It has also partnered with more than 30,000 food suppliers, from Yo Sushi to Accor Hotels.
So far, the Too Good To Go app has helped to save more than 25 million meals.
Mette describes it as a “social impact” company. “Every time we make a euro in revenue, it’s because we did something good.”
“I feel like this is just the beginning,” says Mette. “Within the next five years, we want to have saved a billion meals.”
Sources: https://www.google.it/amp/s/www.bbc.com/news/amp/business-50974009
Originally published at https://www.redpublic.com on December 16, 2021.
