OUT THE BOX

NOW THAT'S A GOOD IDEA...FOOD WASTE MANAGEMENT

TACKLE FOOD WASTE WITH ‘MAGIC BAGS’

WE SPEAK TO PROGRESSIVE MUSSELBURGH RETAILER DAN BROWN TO HEAR HOW HE IS HELPING REDUCE FOOD WASTE AND DELIGHT CUSTOMERS BY PARTNERING WITH THE TOO GOOD TO GO APP TO OFFER SHOPPERS ‘MAGIC BAGS’ OF SHORT-CODED PRODUCTS AT A QUARTER OF THEIR ORIGINAL COST.

WHAT’S THE BIG IDEA, DAN?

Too Good To Go is an app that helps reduce food waste by letting retailers sell short-coded stock or stock that is past its Best Before date in ‘magic bags’ at heavily discounted prices to a receptive audience. An astonishing one-third of all food produced is wasted.

HOW DOES IT WORK?

Basically, we just agreed to partner with the app and then set the ‘rules’. We opted to agree to sell bags with a minimum normal sales value of £12 and then sell them at £4, a 75% saving to the customer.

IS IT NEW?

No, we’ve been doing it since the end of last year, but coronavirus has seen a lot more people interested in reducing food waste. It’s easy to set up and it works really well. Typically we’ll sell maybe eight to 10 bags a day, but that fluctuates a lot depending upon stock levels and a variety of other factors.

WAS IT DIFFICULT TO GENERATE INTEREST?

Not at all. We were astonished at how quickly it picked up. That’s probably down to the fact that a lot of people already use the app, partly because Morrisons use it too, so there was an audience already there when we started. It took off literally overnight.

WHAT’S IN YOUR MAGIC BAGS?

It’s different every day and often for every bag. We promise a minimum value of £12 at normal cost levels, which customers get for just £4. There’s lot of ways of using the app from a retailer’s point of view, but we use it as a way of managing waste in short shelf life categories like fresh and chilled. So we’ll include ready meals, meat, fruit and veg and so on. But we try to mix it up so the shoppers gets a useful bag. We wouldn’t give them £14 worth of carrots! But because we decide on what to include every day, we can choose what to include so we often also include things like sandwiches, pastries and food-to-go.

DOES IT WORK FOR YOU?

Definitely. It reduces the amount of stock we waste, and it also minimises the amount of instore reduction pricing which doesn’t do the store image a lot of good if you’ve got a lot of it. Even at £4, if we sell 10 of them a day we’re getting £40 back when we might have got next to nothing by discounting it in the store, so that adds up to.

AND IT WORKS FOR CUSTOMERS?

The popularity of the service speaks for itself. Customers get delicious, perfectly edible food that would normally get thrown out at the end of the day – so they get to help do their bit for the planet while also getting some fantastic bargains at the same time.

REDUCE YOUR FOOTPRINT

Join 3,938 UK businesses in taking visible action to combat a crucial environmental issue.

FIND NEW REGULARS

Get in front of three million users. Three out of four who discover a store through Too Good To Go will return as full-paying customers.

IMPROVE YOUR MARGINS

Turn losses into income: so far, UK businesses have sold two million Magic Bags through Too Good To Go.