One recent morning, someone told me about Too Good To Go, an app that teams with restaurants to offer food that’s left at the end of the day to customers looking for a bargain. Food is priced at about 1/3 of its original cost, but what you get is chosen by the restaurant you select, not you.
Too Good To Go is based in Denmark; the company has existed since 2016 and has been operating in North America since 2020. That history gave me some confidence, not just because it indicated a successful business model, but also because it seemed to eliminate the possibility that this was an elaborate food poisoning scheme, sponsored by the Danish government and intended as a rebuke for the U.S.A.’s aggressive interest in Greenland. I mentioned Too Good To Go to two people later that day, as a kind of “What will they think of next?” commentary on smartphone apps; both had heard of it, and one had just bought bagels through the app.
Was I missing out? I was curious enough to download the app and see what was being offered. It seems Two Good To Go is popular with bakeries, bagel stores, and especially pizzerias, which now have an opportunity to unload leftover slices to paying customers.
I almost deleted the app instantly, but some kind of uncanny cheapskate precognition compelled me not to. I told my wife about the app, and she predicted, “I see a column coming.” What can I say? She knows me well.
Later that day, a failed dinner experiment led to a situation Too Strange To Ignore. It felt like our next steps were fated: with my wife’s approval, we purchased a “Surprise Bag” from a local pizza shop for $4.99, to be picked up between 8:30 and 9 p.m.
On Too Good To Go, surprises are plentiful. Food sellers offer Surprise Bags and Surprise Bowls and Surprise Boxes; also the enticing, but slightly scary, plain old “Surprise.” The novelty of food surprise has rarely been used as a marketing strategy in this country, perhaps due to lasting memories of shared childhood trauma—no one ever rushed to the school cafeteria to try the “mystery meat.” And yet, as I entered the pizzeria, I experienced a sense of excitement about eating I haven’t felt in a long time—a strange wash of anxiety, adrenaline, and alarm.
Too Good To Go encourages its users to bring their own bags to pick up food. I had imagined myself positioning a generously sized paper bag, sweeping my free arm along the countertop—with the approval of the store manager—and pushing a substantial amount of leftovers till they dropped unceremoniously off the edge and safely into my possession. In my excited state, however, I forgot to bring a bag, so instead I imagined myself carrying out an assortment of food awkwardly stacked between two paper plates, which was about as good as the packaging ever got at some of the pizza places I frequented as a teenager.
I walked up to the counter and said, “I’m here to pick up a Surprise Bag.” I made it sound like a question, and it occurred to me that this would make a decent opening scene to an action thriller—a sly handoff of secret information, a firearm, or drugs. I needn’t have worried about the bag—without a word, I was handed a 10”x10” white cardboard box, and made my exit. I briefly wondered if the store employees resented the app, or me, since the food they might have taken home otherwise was now reserved for wandering bargain-seekers.
Back in the car, I handed the box to my wife to hold. We debated opening it then and there, but decided to save the surprise until we got home. I tell you, with no pride or exaggeration, that my heart was beating at a fevered clip.
Arriving home, we practically fell over each other in anticipation, rushing into the kitchen to reveal the box’s contents. It contained (drum roll, please): four assorted pizza slices, and a skewer of cooked chicken. The amount of food in the Surprise Bag (Surprise Box, actually, but let’s not get nitpicky) was—you guessed it—surprising. It seemed like a pretty good deal for five bucks. Picky people might have objections to unpredictable food, but with a little microwaving, it was fine. I wouldn’t steer anyone away from using the app, nor would I go out of my way to endorse it. Yet even feeling no urge to use it again, it continued to fascinate me.
Implicit in the name Too Good To Go is the addendum “To Waste,” and I hadn’t realized how much this food bargain shopping would be couched in environmentally friendly, “Save the world” type advertising. I had been called to action with inspiring and button-pressing entreaties like, “Help rescue surplus food.” I now regretted that I hadn’t greeted the pizza shop owner with a more memorable and movie-worthy line like, “I heard someone’s been holding surplus food here. No longer.” Or, taking a cue from the original Star Wars movie, I might have addressed the surplus food directly and said, “I’m Peter Dabbene, I’m here to rescue you.”
When I made my $4.99 purchase, the app dubbed me a “Hero” and a “Waste Warrior”; I half-expected John Williams’ theme for Superman: The Movie to burst out of the phone speakers. Seeking to confirm my heroic status, I checked out the company’s website, where I read that my single Surprise Bag purchase saved 214 gallons of water. That seemed high, but when offered the chance to download and read the 52-page Environmental Footprint Report that apparently breaks down that calculation, I declined. Saving the planet is important, but saving my own time is pretty important too.
The company looks to glorify its users as participants in an altruistic global mission, rather than people looking for a cheap meal. It is worthy of note, however, that while they gush about saving 2.7 kg of carbon dioxide emissions with every Surprise Bag purchased, there’s no accounting for transportation back and forth to the restaurant to get the food. I checked, and a six-mile round trip in a typical passenger car emits about 2.5 kg of CO2. Buying discount food saved the world about 0.2 kg of CO2 emissions. Maybe I am a hero. You’re welcome.
I shouldn’t poke fun—the world could use more companies that care about the environment, instead of only caring about what they can get away with doing to the environment. The “Waste Warrior” language is a valid marketing approach to the business; after all, if I want to eat cheap food that’s been sitting around for a few hours, I can just go to my local 7-11 and pick something off the roller grill. Eating old food isn’t heroic. Brave, yes. Bold, yes. Maybe even fearless (some people order sushi through Too Good To Go). But the hero theme puts a positive spin on an act that is, let’s face it, one step removed from dumpster diving. And it does make me feel better about the future that across the country, as we speak, college students are unintentionally preparing themselves to save the world by eating leftover pizza.
The company’s decision to name itself “Too Good To Go” instead of “2 Good 2 Go” is an indication of how seriously it takes its mission—or maybe just a wider Danish reluctance to embrace lowbrow American numeronyms—but in other ways it’s refreshingly down to earth (in addition to being down with Earth). There are no fancy restaurants on Too Good To Go—wouldn’t it be interesting if there were? The choice between discounted, leftover gourmet food and full-priced, freshly reheated chain fare would be a fascinating dilemma.
Instead, recent Too Good To Go listings included a Buffet & Cajun Seafood Restaurant, where in exchange for paying $6.99 instead of $21.99, you’d sacrifice the reason most people choose a buffet—choice. The element of surprise is a powerful attraction for me, but imagination can work for good or evil, and the presence of modifiers in the food description made me nervous. “This Surprise Bag is likely to contain casual buffet food.” Which seems to imply there’s not a zero percent chance it could instead contain stuffy, formal buffet food, or say, a raccoon (alive or dead, raw or cooked—it’s a surprise!). If ever an app was meant for April Fool’s Day, it’s this one.
Another restaurant asked patrons to rescue a Surprise Bag containing a selection of “feel-good food” that the store has left at the end of the day. “Feel-good food” seemed like a strange choice of words, and a potentially false promise. “Feel-bad food” might be more likely, depending on the hardiness or sensitivity of one’s stomach.
One challenge in using Too Good To Go is that food needs to be picked up when restaurants are nearing closing time, often within a 30-minute window. If you’re a night owl, this could be right up your alley, though there are exceptions, like a Philly Pretzel Factory location that offered a Surprise Bag with a pickup window from 4:48 p.m. to 4:58 p.m., a period brief and precise enough that it made me wonder if someone was fencing pilfered pretzels from the back of a truck.
Online, you’ll find reviews of Too Good To Go that rave, rage, or fall in the middle—opinions, like the product itself, are a mixed bag. My favorite review, found on Reddit, was titled, “I’m done using this app, it makes me feel like a whore.” I wouldn’t go that far, and I haven’t given up the idea of picking up a Surprise Bag now and then to add a bit of intrigue to the process of eating, but chasing food around town at odd hours has limited appeal for me.
Luckily, I’m able to eat without stalking food discounts, mostly by cooking my own meals. It’s a cost-effective practice that might seem like a quaint, lost art to younger generations accustomed to committing a generous slice of their income to DoorDash and GrubHub. I’m not judging, to each their own—so when it comes to Too Good To Go, I wouldn’t say I’m Too Good To Go, but I am perfectly Good To Not Go.
Peter Dabbene’s website is peterdabbene.com.
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