Too Good To Go: how the surprise parcel business works

Surprise packages against food waste: Too Good To Go is gradually conquering Central Switzerland. We take a look at the hotspots and report on an interview with Georg Strasser

For the World Day against Food Waste at the end of September, the 'Too Good To Go' organisation created a Switzerland-wide ranking of the cantons in which the most food is saved from being deposited in the waste. The result: The most Too-Good-To-Go surprise packages were saved in Basel-City, followed by Zurich and Zug. The canton of Lucerne is also in 11th place in Central Switzerland.

Georg Strasser, Director for Switzerland and Austria at Too Good To Go, remembers the beginnings in this country. Today, the canton of Zug, with 110 partner companies, and the canton of Lucerne, with around 300 partner companies, are among the hotspots nationwide.

What was in your last surprise package?
Georg Strasser: The last time I was in Zurich, I saved a surprise package from the Hug bakery and was happy to receive some really good bread.

What does ‘saved’ mean here?
In order to counteract food waste, Too Good To Go offers restaurants, cafés, supermarkets, bakeries and hotels the opportunity to use the app to offer surplus food they have, and that would otherwise end up in the trash, at a discounted price, i.e. to ‘save’ it.

Do you use the service often?
I'm always trying out new partners so that I can also test our new features when they come into the app.

What was it like at the beginning? Did Too Good To Go immediately meet with open ears?
Too Good To Go started in Switzerland in 2018. At the beginning, we went to the shops and did a lot of convincing. We quickly gained popularity, and many companies now contact us directly and want to save their products using our app.

What was it like at the beginning? Were providers from Central Switzerland at the forefront?
We received a very positive response from partners and users in Central Switzerland Right from the start, and were able to continuously expand our collaborations.

Where is the “hotspot” in Central Switzerland?
If you calculate the number of surprise packages saved per capita, the canton of Zug is the hotspot, with more than 50,000 packages being saved here in the last twelve months. If you look at the total number of packages saved, however, the canton of Lucerne is at the top in central Switzerland. 117,000 packages were saved here.

With Too Good To Go, food that would otherwise be thrown away can be picked up at a price that is reduced by around two thirds       
Georg Strasser, Director for Switzerland and Austria at Too Good To Go    
The surprise packages often contain fruit and vegetables                Photos: zvg

How high is the demand in Central Switzerland?
As I said, Zug and Lucerne are leaders when it comes to food rescue. Uri and Nidwalden and Obwalden are among the cantons with the fewest partner companies, but we are constantly expanding our cooperation there too, because our users are eager to save surprise packages.

Who are the more cooperative and open: the suppliers or the buyers?
Both sides, because both our partners and our users want to make their contribution to reducing food waste.

Are there more retailers or more restaurants, kiosks, farm shops?
We currently work with over 7,300 partner companies from a wide range of segments in Switzerland. Supermarket chains and bakeries make up a large share, of course, but many smaller businesses, as well as kiosks and farm shops, are an important addition to our offering, because food has to be saved everywhere in order to reduce the amount that ends up as waste.

And how is the target group of customers composed: students, welfare recipients, upper middle class?
Our target group is very diverse, colourful and consists of all age groups. It includes students, families, pensioners and smaller and larger households, as well as single households.

Which products are most often included in the packages?
The contents of the surprise packages naturally vary depending on the company. In supermarkets, for example, it is often fruit and vegetables, dairy products, convenience products, i.e., ready-made products and ready meals, as well as baked goods.

Is there an attempt to raise the prices?
The price of a package is always around a third of the original price.

Note:
Every third food item is thrown away
More than 2.8 million tons of food are thrown away In Switzerland every year. This corresponds to a third of all food produced. This is not only a financial loss, but also a loss for the environment, as food waste is one of the biggest drivers of the climate crisis.

To counteract this, Too Good To Go was founded in Denmark in 2016, and has also been active in Switzerland since 2018. The company, with headquarters in Copenhagen, is now active in 17 countries in Europe and North America, has over 78 million registered users worldwide and works with 140,000 partner companies.

Since its launch in 2016, Too Good To Go has saved more than 250 million meals worldwide. According to Project Drawdown, tackling food waste is a key to solving the climate crisis. Project Drawdown is a non-profit organisation with the goal of stopping global warming. Since its launch in Switzerland in 2018, the number of users has increased to 2.1 million and the number of partner companies to 7,300, and more than 9 million surprise packages have now been sold over the counter.

The app was opened an average of 1.93 times per day in Switzerland iIn 2022. A record was set by a user who picked up 997 surprise packages last year.