'Too Good to Go' app helps reduce food waste

LONG ISLAND - If you're looking to buy food for a bargain while eliminating waste, there’s an app for that!

Ryan Carroll, owner of Kick’N Chicken in Farmingdale is one of the newest partners to team up with an app called Too Good To Go. 

"It’s $4-6, and they’re getting our leftover chicken which is still good, probably $15-20 worth of food," Carroll said. "We have people who get Too Good To Go, and then they come back for lunch the next day."

Users can search the app to buy unsold food for just a third of the price from local restaurants, bakeries, coffee shops, and grocery stores that would have otherwise been thrown out. 

"You’re going to reserve what we call a surprise bag and that bag will be filled with food they had planned on selling to customers that day," said Claire Oliverson, U.S. Head of Communications with Too Good To Go. 

Surprise bags at Family Bagels in Plainview are packed with some of their bestsellers including cotton candy and Oreo bagels. 

Owner Michael Schatt says they’ve been selling out of the surprise bags since they signed on with the app. 

"It’s just a great way to get rid of food that’s not going in the garbage," Schatt said. 

Too Good To Go launched in 2016 in Denmark, came to New York City in 2020, and started on Long Island last spring. Since then about 80,000 meals were saved from waste in Nassau and Suffolk Counties. 

"It’s super fresh, delicious food that someone was paying full price for, just fifteen minutes ago," Oliverson said.  

About 40-percent of food goes to waste in the United States each year according to Too Good To Go and while the app isn’t for everyone, stores are seeing extra sales at a time when many can use a boost in business and diners are getting a deal by saving a few dollars.