On the day established to prevent food waste (Feb. 5), the Too Good To Go app is celebrating its achievements in four years of operation in Italy. And he gives some useful tips for saving food, thus resources and money.
Too Good To Go, 5 facts about food waste.
Established in 2015 in the Netherlands, the Too Good To Go app has been operating in Italy since March 2019, currently in more than 600 municipalities.
The system allows unsold food at the end of the day from bars, restaurants, bakeries, pastry shops, supermarkets and hotels to be purchased at a discounted price.
In Italy, this app has already saved 11 million meals (in Magic Boxes) by connecting 7 million users and 25 thousand merchants.
30 percent of food is still wasted
Food waste volumes remain approximate (as noted on Eurostat reports). However, the estimates are worthwhile to raise consumer awareness:
- food waste is estimated to amount to 30 percent of total production,
- food waste accounts for 10 percent of CO2 emissions. If it were a country, it would be the third largest emitter after the United States and China,
- the European Union throws away more food than it imports (153.5 mln t of waste and 138 mln t of imports),
- 53 percent of food waste in Europe is attributed to consumers. Each person, through their own actions and habits, can really make a difference,
- in Italy an estimated 67 kg of food per capita is wasted in a year at the household level, 4 kg per capita at the retail level (Food Waste Index, UNEP, 2021).
Reducing waste. Too Good To Go’s 5 tips
Everyone’s commitment is the decisive element for change. Too Good To Go provides 5 tips for reducing food waste in household consumption.
1) Learn to read labels well. Knowing the difference between expiration date and Minimum Storage Term can prevent the waste of foods with TMC (the words “bestbefore”), which are often thrown away even though they are still good.
2) Plan your spending creatively. Writing down and planning ahead for grocery shopping, without overspending, can help drastically reduce food waste at the household level.
3) Store food in the right way. Knowing what are the best ways to store food in the pantry, refrigerator or freezer can help extend the life of products.
4) Reuse and recycle. Creatively reusing leftovers in the kitchen is important and can help find the right destination for all kinds of foods.
5) Use the technology at your disposal. Too Good To Go in less than 4 years has helped save more than 11 million meals in Italy, engaging 7 million people who have downloaded the app and enabling 25,000 commercial merchants to make a personal commitment against waste.
Saving 11 million Magic Boxes means avoiding the emissions of more than 3,000 Italian citizens for one year, but also those from more than 150 years of hot showers.
These and other solutions for measuring and reducing food loss and food waste are being studied in the Wasteless research project in Horizon Europe.
Professional journalist since January 1995, he has worked for newspapers (Il Messaggero, Paese Sera, La Stampa) and periodicals (NumeroUno, Il Salvagente). She is the author of journalistic surveys on food, she has published the book "Reading labels to know what we eat".
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