Dallas—Instead of tossing leftover pastries and surplus meals, some Dallas bakeries and restaurants are now selling them at discounted rates to reduce food waste.
Mystery bags of baked goods, groceries and prepared meals from more than 95 local food businesses can now be purchased from a new-to-Dallas app called Too Good To Go.
The bags are sold for a third of the cost of the retail value, typically ranging from $3.99 to $5.99 depending on what’s inside. Allie Denberg, head of strategy and planning for Too Good to Go, says customers pick which businesses they want to order bags from, but they don’t pick what’s inside. That’s the fun of it, she says.
“Sometimes there are bags full of croissants or sometimes a full meal from a restaurant,” she said. “We have online communities pop up where people share what they got in their mystery bags that day.”
In the Dallas area, people can buy mystery bags of cookies from Tiff’s Treats, groceries and pasta kits from Eataly, pastries from Bisous Bisous Patisserie, bread from Empire Baking Co., and poke bowls from Malibu Poke. The bags are mostly available for pickup in the late afternoon and evening when businesses take stock of their remaining inventory, but pickup times depend on the place.
Although the app just launched in Dallas, bags from some businesses such as Eataly and Empire Baking Co. sell out quickly.
Corrado Palmieri, owner of Palmieri Cafe, recently started using the app to sell a few bags of pastries from his Italian cafes at the end of each day. His coffee shops donate all of their unsold pastries to nonprofit Family Gateway, but now they reserve a few to sell at discounted prices through Too Good to Go.
“We see it as a possibility for new people to try our products,” Palmieri said.
Too Good to Go launched in Europe in 2016 with the mission of reducing global food waste. It now operates in 17 countries and has saved 200 million meals since its founding, Denberg said.
“Our goal is to create an opportunity for anyone to participate in saving food,” she said.
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