Too Good To Go enables consumers to buy food that would otherwise be thrown out at the end of the day. The idea started in Denmark and has quickly spread across Europe with everyone from mom and pop bakeries to big grocery retailers getting on board. Today they’ve saved some 25.5 million meals and opened up a new customer segment for many food businesses.
In this episode, we speak with Mikkel Fog Holm-Nielsen who runs special projects for Too Good To Go’s management team. Join us as we discuss their ambitious strategy to fight food waste across multiple fronts. By 2020, they aim to work with 75,000 businesses, inspire 50 million people to reduce their household food waste, impact regulation in 5 countries, and have a food waste curriculum in 500 schools.
- 2:00 How Too Good To Go got started
- 5:40 Creating a business around food waste
- 14:10 Vision for the future food system and what’s missing to get there
- 17:20 How they are fighting food waste via business, politics, education, and household behavior
- 27:30 Company culture and why much of the team from Endomondo, which sold to Under Armour for $85 million, joined Too Good To Go
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Key Minutes & Show Notes
2:00 How did Too Good To Go get started?
All the restaurants the founders talked to were interested.
3:30 What stage is the company at today?
The number of customers we have makes us an important player because policy makers will listen to that volume of customers.
4:40 What is your role in the company?
5:10 How do you measure impact?
Our north star is how many meals we save on a daily and yearly basis.
5:40 How do you work with different stores from canteens to bakeries or restaurants?
6:55 How hard is it to get a store to sign on?
It’s a pretty hard business case to say no to.
7:30 How can you know what’s going to be available in advance?
8:50 Do you provide stores with additional analytics or data on this new customer segment?
We’ll help do price setting.
10:00 What are the economics for making a business like this work?
For the stores, everything that is not a minus is a good thing.
11:20 How do consumers differ across countries when it comes to fighting food waste?
We see some global segments across the countries, however, the food waste conversation and awareness differs on different national levels based on politics and marketing messaging.
13:40 What is your hiring strategy across the different markets?
We can’t do this if we’re not super local.
14:10 What is your vision for the food system in 10-15 years?
We need way more cooperation across the value chain.
15:10 What are we missing to get there?
An understanding that my gain is not your loss or the other way around. That mindset change is key.
17:20 You state 4 pillars for starting a movement around saving food, which are business, education, policy, and household. What do the strategies looks like under each pillar?
We are realizing more and more that we have to work with policy makers with a long term perspective.
22:00 How have food safety policies dramatically increased food waste?
We need to decrease food waste while making sure that the food in the market is still safe to eat.
24:00 How does Too Good To Go ensure food safety?
24:50 What kind of collaborations are you looking for?
We’d love to know more about what kind of inventory retailers have. If we could know further in advance what is available to help make more sales in advance that would be really helpful.
27:00 What is the business model?
No cure no pay.
27:34 Mette Lykke was founder and CEO of Endomondo, which sold to Under Armor. A lot of that original team has also joined Too Good To Go. What kind of culture do you have now?
31:20 What’s the best way for someone to contact you?