A wholemeal rye bread, a piece of plum cake, a sesame roll and a croissant. The “Too good to go” bag from the Kaiser organic bakery in Kaiserstraße is filled with baked goods worth eight euros. However, it only cost 3.50 euros. At Biokaiser, “too good to go” customers can put their bags together themselves, but only with the goods that were left over shortly before the end of the day. The surprise bags are usually prepackaged by the employees - those interested only have to pick up their portion in the evening after they have reserved and paid for one via the app. For every portion sold, “Too good to go” charges the companies a fee.

Bakers, supermarkets, restaurants, cafés and hotels can offer daily portions of leftover food in the app, which the buyer then has to pick up within a certain time frame - often shortly before or shortly after work. If there isn't that much left at the end of the day, the company can still cancel the order in good time. The purchase price via the app is often barely half the original price. But this way the companies have to throw away less groceries, they even earn a little, and customers are grateful for the cheap groceries.

A typical win-win situation, says Rita Sköries-Schmiedel, sales manager at Kaiser organic bakeries.

Almost all branches in Frankfurt and the Rhine-Main area have been participating in the business model for two years now.

The bakeries always planned to return around seven percent so that the customers would still have a good selection in the evening, but still hardly threw anything away.

What remains after work despite the “too good to go” customers go to the blackboard or to the homeless help - that is enough despite the bags sold, says Sköries-Schmiedel.

However, some goods would have to be thrown away in any case, including sandwiches, as they spoil quickly.

Trouble with "normal customers"

So far, the bakery chain has had very good experiences with the app, says the sales manager. Operation is easy for both parties, and demand has been high right from the start. "Normal customers" would have been annoyed at first if someone came before them with the app and got the goods cheaper, says Sköries-Schmiedel: "Our employees first had to explain a lot." Now, during the partial lockdown, it falls that the demand in the city branches is falling, but increasing in the district branches. That is probably because more people are in the home office.

Just like Biokaiser, the Scandic hotel chain does without pre-packed bags. The app users can help themselves to the breakfast buffet in the Frankfurt branch on the Museumsufer for 3.50 euros. This allows you to take intolerance and allergies into consideration, says Daniel Deglow, Food and Beverage Manager at the Frankfurt House. The hotel offers five breakfast boxes a day, outside of the corona lockdown there were more. When the lockdown is over next year, customers could buy boxes from the lunch buffet again for 4.50 euros.

Last year, 2000 portions of food were saved in the four German houses of the Scandic chain, and the hotels offered around 40 boxes per day, says Deglow.

As a result, there was hardly anything left that should have been thrown away at the end of the day.

Other leftover food is processed into biogas or offered on “Foodsharing”, an online platform where members can offer free food that would otherwise end up in the garbage.

"Mega" idea

The Alnatura organic markets in Frankfurt also work together with “Too good to go” and “Foodsharing”. There's not something left over every day, says an employee at the Alnatura store on Bockenheimer Landstrasse. But if so, then the market offers around three fruit and vegetable bags as well as two to three baked goods bags for 3.90 euros each. Shortly before the holidays there were also twelve bags. It contains baked goods from the previous day or fruit and vegetables that should no longer be sold as they are, but are still good. Most of the time, the bags would have a value of 13 to 16 euros. Anything that can no longer be put into the bags, for example red and white cabbage with dried-on outer slices, goes to "food sharing".

The demand is very high, after five minutes all bags are gone, says the Alnatura employee. Sometimes customers complained because they couldn't get hold of one of the bags. According to the employee, the idea is “mega” because it's fun and the organic store branch throws away 80 percent less. It is also planned to offer dry goods via the app in the near future. These are products that the market is taking out of the range or whose packaging is damaged. Dairy products have also been considered, but it is more difficult with them, as they have to be continuously cooled. "We'd need our own refrigerator for that," says the employee.

Around 200 Frankfurt businesses are taking part in the offer, and users have saved around 200,000 meals in four years, says Johanna Paschek, spokeswoman for Too good to go. The app is also still growing. Due to the current situation, however, restaurants would offer fewer meals. The awareness of food waste is growing, says Paschek - "both on the part of businesses and consumers".