Costcutter helps retailers cut waste with trial of app to help consumers buy unsold food

The initiative, which features the app, Too Good To Go, is being tested in 20 company-owned and independent outlets to see how effective it can be dealing with food that retailers are not able to sell in time.

Too Good To Go is a free app which allows consumers to purchase unsold food from shops and restaurants at the end of the day to prevent it from being thrown away.

It helps retailers to reduce food waste and their carbon footprint by enabling them to sell “magic” bags of surplus fresh food and groceries on the day of expiry that would otherwise risk going to waste.

In the first month of operation in Costcutter outlets, the app helped the 20 participating stores to sell 321 of its food bags which is estimated to have saved more than 1,000 meals from being dumped.

The move to use the app is part of Costcutter’s strategy of reducing its environmental impact and developing its links with local communities that have been hard hit by months of lockdowns.

The retailer operates more than 1,550 outlets nationally using the Costcutter, Mace, Supershop, and Simply Fresh brands.

Almost 6,000 UK businesses have already signed up to use the Too Good To Go  app and 2.6 million bags of food are claimed to have been distributed so far through the service.