A shopper on Reddit recently shared images of a massive food haul they obtained from two different food waste reduction apps.
The first picture showed nine pastries they purchased for $5 from Panera on the app Too Good To Go. The second image displayed a generous assortment of meats, one dozen eggs, and a sizable bunch of grapes the shopper obtained for $25 from a local grocer using the Flashfood app.
"Of note, there was a second cinnamon roll, but I ate it on the way home," they added to the caption of their post on Reddit's r/budgetfood.
Too Good To Go partners with local eateries and restaurants to offer customers discounted prices on surplus or unsold food items that would otherwise be "unsellable" and thrown in dumpsters and sent to landfills. Similarly, Flashfood connects customers with grocers who have fresh food, like meat and produce, that is nearing their best-before date.
So, while the OP only spent $30 on their food haul, the total retail cost of everything they purchased was likely double or triple what they paid. They also helped keep perfectly good food from being sent to a landfill.
According to statistics from the World Wide Fund for Nature shared on Too Good To Go's website, 40% of the total amount of food produced worldwide — or more than 2.75 billion tons — is wasted every year.
After being sent to landfills, food waste decomposes and releases methane, a powerful planet-warming gas that traps heat in the Earth's atmosphere 28 times more effectively than carbon dioxide. The Environmental Protection Agency reports that food waste in landfills generates more methane than any other type, accounting for about 58%.
While food waste is difficult to avoid completely, there are still plenty of ways to curb the amount of food and other types of waste your household generates. For example, composting is a simple and effective way to reduce your household's food waste and return vital nutrients to the earth for future food production.
🗣️ What's your biggest motivation in trying to reduce your personal food waste?
🔘 Saving money 💰
🔘 Helping the planet 🌎
🔘 Not being a wasteful person 😇
🔘 I don't think about reducing food waste 🤷
🗳️ Click your choice to see results and speak your mind
There are even other waste reduction apps similar to Too Good To Go and Flashfood that focus on preventing other types of waste, such as clothes and shoes, from entering landfills. Depop and ThredUp are both online thrift apps that allow users to buy and sell clothes, helping to keep perfectly good clothes from joining the 101 million tons of clothing that wind up in landfills annually.
In the comments section of the original post, users were impressed by the shopper's food haul, and users who had never heard of the apps were eager to give it a go themselves.
"Only thirty bucks?!" said one user, who was shocked to read the total they paid. "You did great!"
"I have this app and was looking to see how it worked for some," wrote another person. "I'll definitely look to giving it a solid go."
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