Too Good to Go
With the amount of baked goods, pastries and snacks Coffee Bean makes, one can question what happens to the food that isn’t sold in a day. Well, some participating locations are on the app Too Good To Go. This app is dedicated to reducing food waste, which Coffee Bean uses to make surprise bags with different food items sold at five dollars or less.
Although it may not be at the top of everyone’s list, reducing food waste can help the earth immensely. Food waste actually creates a large emission of methane which affects the earth's atmosphere since it can trap heat. According to the UN Environment Program methane is heating the earth much more than carbon dioxide.
A wide variety of food locations that are tailored to user’s location. Photo from Micoope.
Food scraps are one of the most common items found in landfills and they just sit there producing methane. However, there are multiple ways to reduce food waste. It is being done every day with restaurants and small bakeries through the app Too Good To Go.
Too Good works by finding locations that offer their surplus food as an alternative to throwing it out. There are multiple businesses in Long Beach that partner with the app. One of those is Simone’s Donuts. Having been on the app for a year now, the shop has donut boxes being sold for five dollars.
Simone’s is not the only Long Beach small business on the app; there's also George’s Greek Cafe and Mrs Chapman’s Angel Food Donut Shop. Most have share prices below $10 for food that is still good and just would’ve gone to the trash instead.
Simones donuts one of the participating locations on Too Good to go only ten minutes away from campus. Photo by Yasmine Poot.
If you don’t find yourself in Long Beach or Southern California in general, don’t worry. Many locations across the nation use the app. PennDel's Bakehouse is just one example in Northern California. “It’s just a waste and it fills up trash and everything. I would rather make sure someone else is eating it rather than throwing it in the trash, it's bad for the environment. I’ve been using the app for two years and three months and it helps with the food cost I would be throwing away,” said Gayle Tule-Chen, owner of PennDel's Bakehouse.
Too Good To Go is available in 17 countries. In 2023 the results were huge. “We saved 121,686,720 meals across our Surprise Bags, Parcels and Products, a huge 46% more than in 2022. Saving so many meals has meant avoiding over 26,000,000,000 US gallons of unnecessary water being used and 362,169 tons CO2e from entering the Earth’s atmosphere.”
The app is a very good alternative to eating out as prices have been going up in groceries and fast food. Too Good To Go can help out students find a cheaper way to get a sweet treat or even lunch. The app is free to download and is spreading the message of helping the earth