I Spent a Week Eating Discarded Restaurant Food. But Was It Really Going to Waste?

By Morgan Meaker

[Too Good To Go](https://www.wired.com/story/too-good-to-go-app-food-waste/) is a Danish app that is surging in popularity, selling over [120 million](https://tgtg-mkt-cms-prod.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/46415/ENG_2023_ImpactReport.pdf) meals last year and expanding fast in the US. For five days, I decided to divert my weekly food budget to eat exclusively through the app, paying between £3 and £6 (about $4 to $8) for meals that range from a handful of cakes to a giant box of groceries, in an attempt to understand what a tech company can teach me about food waste in my own city.

**MONDAY**

**Breakfast:** Full English and pastries from Novotel Hotel. *Cost:* *£4.50 (recommended retail price: £16.50)*

**Lunch:** Dahl curry, chicken nuggets, and raspberry lemonade from Leon.
*Cost: £4.39 (RRP: £12)*

**Dinner**: Nothing (too full)

Users who open the TGTG app are presented with a list of establishments that either have food going spare right now or expect to in the near future. Provided is a brief description of the restaurant, a price, and a time slot. Users pay through the app, but this is not a delivery service. Surprise bags—customers have only a vague idea of what’s inside before they buy—have to be collected in person.

The app promises to cut waste by directing hungry bargain hunters to leftover restaurant food. But the week I spent living off the app had me wondering if Too Good To Go is too good to be true.

Read the full story: [https://www.wired.com/story/too-good-to-go-app-week-food-waste/](https://www.wired.com/story/too-good-to-go-app-week-food-waste/)

Wait, official wired magazine farming engagement with unrelated articles posted directly to reddit?