On a budget for your meals? Many students are — and lately, some have turned to apps like Too Good To Go which sell surplus food sold at cheaper prices. With Too Good To Go, restaurants, cafes, and even grocery stores can sell their leftover or uneaten food in the form of surprise bags to those who claim them in the app. Customers then collect them in-store during a window of time determined by the sellers. 

By limiting unsold food that usually goes to waste, every surprise bag avoids roughly 2.7 kilograms of carbon dioxide emissions: a great solution for people, profit, and the planet. 

Students’ thoughts

For students, the app is cost-effective as each order totals around five dollars to $10. Emmy Dinh — a first-year student studying life sciences — tried the app after hearing about it from a friend. “It’s really affordable and convenient,” she explains. “The surprise bags are generally big portions, and I don’t have any issues with the quality of the food either.” Most importantly, Too Good To Go helps reduce food waste, and Dinh adds, “I try my best to incorporate environmental sustainability into my decisions.”

However, other students, such as fourth-year finance and economics student Aryan Aggarwal, have run into challenges with Too Good To Go. Using the app around twice a week, he finds that the biggest concern is not knowing what the surprise bag contains. 

“Sometimes it’s really good, sometimes it’s not,” he mentions. “If [I] didn’t have [dietary] restrictions, it would be a lot better.” As a vegetarian, he can only order from two or three restaurants on the app to ensure his meals align with his preferences. Aggarwal’s experience with the app is still overall positive, and he recommends it to other students with no dietary restrictions.

Retailer perspectives: Opportunities and challenges

From a retailer’s perspective, Too Good To Go is an entirely different experience. Dipped Donuts — a small Toronto business with locations on Kensington Market and Queen Street West — was approached by the app during the COVID-19 pandemic. Owner Jiten Grover finds the initiative to have some unforeseen complications. “You get told you reduce a certain amount of food waste and obviously decrease your loss in sales,” he describes, “for example, if you have $50 [worth of food] leftover, you make $15 or $20 off it.”

“The issue is, that also decreases your brand’s [perceived value].” When a product is priced too low, consumers may doubt its quality and deem it as ‘cheap.’ This can be especially problematic for a specialty business like Dipped Donuts, which is marketed as a “gourmet donut shop.” 

Additionally, Grover noticed that over time, “[customers] didn’t really come to buy donuts. They just came and used Too Good To Go… if we put 10 boxes up, they [are sold] straight away.” As a result, Grover expresses concerns that these apps can actually decrease the company’s revenue as fewer customers are purchasing donuts during the day for the regular price. 

To counter this problem, Dipped Donuts has cancelled the app’s service for their Queen Street location and all evening pickups. By only selling surprise bags in the morning at Kensington Market, Grover aims to discourage buyers from only utilizing the app and encourage them to purchase goods at the regular price. 

“It’s because we’re not making any money,” he had to explain to his customers when asked why the bakery has been less active on the app. “It’s great seeing the lump sum come into account three or four months later. That’s amazing, don’t get me wrong. But I’d rather give [the food] to charity.” 

Rethinking sustainability in food waste

Dipped Donuts believes it is difficult to sustain both the business and the environment using Too Good To Go. For them, the app is not the best solution to reduce scraps. 

In a 2024 report by Canada’s largest food-rescue charity, Second Harvest, it was revealed that over 46 per cent of all food in Canada is wasted each year. At Dipped Donuts, Grover has had to cancel Too Good To Go orders because the same user would purchase multiple surprise bags, raising concerns that the food in the bags may go to waste. 

“If that person is buying donuts or croissants from different companies, how much are they actually eating? Are they throwing the donuts away? Are they throwing the croissants [after] taking a bite?” On average, households waste six portions of food per week. Furthermore, avoidable food waste emits 25.7 million metric tonnes of CO₂ annually — the same amount of emissions that 253,000 flights from Toronto to Vancouver would produce. 

Too Good To Go aims to connect sustainability and affordability, working toward reducing carbon emissions and providing options to budget-conscious consumers. The idea of turning surplus food into profit and also protecting the environment can help position Too Good To Go as a strong innovation. With Canadians facing higher levels of food insecurity, Too Good To Go can be a platform to shape a more sustainable — and affordable — future for both sellers and buyers alike. However, the app must also improve to address businesses’ concerns, such as what Grover identified as decreasing business revenues and hurting brand value.