260 businesses in Lower Austria save food with an app

50 000 portions of food are saved with the mobile app “Too good to go”

In Lower Austria, companies use an app to reduce food waste. With the help of a mobile phone app, more than 260 companies have become part of the project “Too good to go”.

Waste analyses show that more than a million tons of food are thrown away in Austria every year. Small shops such as bakeries, delicatessen shops and many others benefit from the app because they can sell goods that are too good to be thrown away.

An initiative started in Denmark

The mobile app is mainly convenient just before closing time when the food that was not sold out is packed in “surprise” bags and customers do not know what they are buying. Businesses have stated that the bags are often bought from regular customers but also many new join the initiative. The aim of the given price is to cover the production costs and the primary benefit is that as little as possible is left over.

The app, which originally came from Denmark, has been around in Austria since 2019. The aim of “Too good to go” is to save perfect food from the rubbish. In the words of managing director Georg Strasser: “We work with supermarkets, hotels and coffee houses and restaurants and help them to sell excess food at the end of the day. Depending on the business and the food, consumers pay between three and five euros. That is always a third of the original price.”

According to residual waste analyses, more than a million tons of food end up in the trash in Austria every year. Strasser added: “This is an enormous burden for our planet and our environment. Every time we produce food, it pollutes our environment and whenever the data situation improves, we notice that we are throwing away more. So, the problem is getting bigger instead of smaller."

He is all the more pleased about the first “milestone” that the company recently achieved in Austria - more than million portions of food saved. In Lower Austria alone there have been more than 50,000 portions of saved food since the beginning of the year.