We The Italians | Italian good news: Food waste, with Too Good To Go over 200 thousand products saved in a year

Italian good news: Food waste, with Too Good To Go over 200 thousand products saved in a year

Italian good news: Food waste, with Too Good To Go over 200 thousand products saved in a year

  • WTI Magazine #148 Feb 19, 2022
  • 587

February 5th was the National Prevention Day against food waste. A problem that affects everyone, consumers and businesses. Every year, in the world, we throw away about 121 kilos of food per head. In Europe, 53% of waste occurs within the home, 17% between distribution and retail, 19% during processing.

Hence the idea of Too Good To Go, one of the first anti-waste app, to involve institutions, companies and supermarkets in a big "Pact against food waste". The initiative, launched in 2021, has gathered the adhesion of 23 companies. These include Danone, Granarolo, Ikea, Nestlé and Unilever. All have promoted concrete actions and awareness campaigns.

The result? In one year, 368,000 boxes of food and 212,000 products were saved, as revealed in Too Good To Go's first impact report. About 10 million packages were put on the market with Aware Label (which better specifies the meaning of the words "best before"). And over 1.5 million people, including employees and consumers, have been made aware through webinars, events and ad hoc campaigns. In addition, with the support of the Italian Red Cross, 145,000 products were donated to people in need.

"The Pact against food waste is a project that we launched with the intent to go beyond the activity of the app, creating a virtuous system that deals with the fight against food waste at 360 degrees: through awareness, with concrete actions and without forgetting the social part" explains Eugenio Sapora, Country Manager Italy of Too Good To Go.

The app allows restaurants, bars, supermarkets to sell unsold products online, at reduced prices. The service is active in 17 countries, from Europe to the US, with over 50 million users. In Italy, since 2019, it has allowed to save 6 million meals and save 14 million kg of CO2. In 2021 it was the most downloaded app in our country in the Food & Drink sector, according to App Annie.

And the commitment, through the Pact Against Waste, does not end there. "We will be even more ambitious in 2022," adds Sapora.