Delivering door-to-door to help fight food waste

Up to one-third of the food produced worldwide is currently being thrown away***, much of it while it is still perfectly safe to eat.

Too Good to Go connects people to food suppliers who are selling leftover products that are entirely edible, despite creeping closer to their ‘best before’ date.

Using the app, people can reserve and pick up products that would otherwise be thrown away, from nearby restaurants, bakeries or supermarkets. Offering a considerable discount on the food sold, it’s a win for both consumers and the planet.

With 3.5 million users in the Netherlands alone, 16 million meals have already been saved from the bin and a new feature being introduced to the app could help make that number even greater.

Shifting from collection to delivery

In partnership with Unilever, Too Good To Go is now letting people across the Netherlands order a box of products from Knorr and other well-loved local brands, including Unox, Calvé and Conimex, to be delivered directly to their homes.

Giving consumers more direct access to products that are close to their sell-by date, combined with easier access for those who cannot pick up at designated times or who live outside participating cities, will hopefully increase the amount of good food saved.

The product boxes currently only contain Unilever products, but together Unilever and Too Good To Go are calling on other food companies to join us, so we can work to reduce food waste together.

Building on our successes

Unilever and Too Good To Go have been collaborating since 2020. The partnership started with a pilot in Rotterdam, offering 1,000 boxes filled with products whose ‘best before’ date was anywhere from a week to several months later than the time of purchase.

The project was such a success, it was scaled up and, in total, saved more than 400,000 products. In September, Too Good To Go started offering a similar home delivery scheme in Denmark.

As part of the partnership, several brands, including Knorr and Hellmann’s, have also introduced a new ‘look, smell, taste – before you waste’ label on their packaging, encouraging consumers to rely on their senses rather than just the ‘best before’ date.

Unilever aims to halve food waste by 2025

We are committed to halving food waste across all our operations from factory to shelf by 2025. But we can’t do it alone, which is why we’re working with partners across the food chain, including Too Good To Go, to change the system and help end food waste.

Debora van der Zee-Denekamp, General Manager, Unilever Nutrition Northern Europe, says, “We have halved our food waste from production to supermarket shelves in the Netherlands in the past two years. Our work with Too Good To Go is part of that and this new opportunity to deliver products that can no longer be sold through regular channels directly to people’s homes is really exciting.”

_{* Action on food waste | WRAP
** Source: FAO
*** Source: Action on food waste | WRAP}