Baltimore restaurants reduce food waste by selling discounted leftovers that are ‘Too Good To Go’

When a hungry customer buys a bag of restaurant leftovers through the Too Good To Go app, its contents are a surprise. But Land of Kush co-owner Naijha Wright-Brown said one thing is certain at her Mount Vernon restaurant: patrons will get a filling vegan meal.

“I’ve seen posts [about Land of Kush] where customers say ‘Now that’s how you fill a bag!’” said Wright-Brown, who runs the restaurant with her husband and chef, Gregory Brown. “So I don’t know what’s going on everywhere else. But whatever we’re giving them, they see the value in it.”

For dishes that are not made to order, restaurants have to gauge how much of each menu item to cook ahead of time, which often results in a surplus of certain foods.

“We do run out of a lot of things that people want us to have,” Wright-Brown said. “But at the end of the night, there are still some things that will go to waste.”

Instead of trashing those extra products, some restaurants and other food service businesses are selling “surprise bags” of leftovers at a discount through the Too Good To Go app.

When customers log on to the app, they can see which restaurants in their city are offering leftovers and can order the bags for pickup from those businesses. Users can also mark favorite restaurants and be alerted when that business has leftovers for sale.

Too Good To Go was founded in 2016 and launched in the United States in September 2020. The app officially launched in Baltimore at the beginning of November 2021, although it had some participants in the city, including Land of Kush, before then.

“We are so excited to launch in an iconic U.S. city with such a dynamic culinary scene,” Too Good To Go co-founder Lucie Basch said in a press release last week. “We already have an incredible group of partners on board, and we hope the people of Baltimore will join us in fighting food waste, one delicious bite at a time.”

Land of Kush, which joined Too Good To Go in early August, has saved more than 250 meals from going to waste, according to the app. It is among more than 50 Baltimore businesses participating in the app.

One of Too Good To Go’s primary goals is to reduce carbon emissions created by food waste.

Globally, Too Good To Go says its partners across 17 countries have saved more than 100 million meals, preventing the creation of about 550 million pounds of carbon dioxide and equivalent gas emissions.

Businesses are also able to recuperate some of their costs from products that might have otherwise ended up in the garbage, according to Too Good To Go’s website.

At one time, Land of Kush participated in a similar program for selling leftovers via Postmates. But after Uber Eats acquired Postmates last year, Wright-Brown said that program “dwindled.”

Wright-Brown said she already tries to cut down on food waste by letting workers bring home leftovers or taking home food for her own family, but Too Good To Go provides another avenue to sell the food.

“You’re not going to get rich” using Too Good To Go, Wright-Brown said, but the app can make a difference for businesses looking to recover a portion of the money from unsold food as pandemic-related challenges persist.

“Especially in this day and time with the pandemic putting a lot of negative impact on businesses, it has been slow,” she said. “So we want to reduce as much waste, cut costs, things like that as best as we can so we can retain staff.”

Fatimah Ames, owner of SweetPeaz Southern Kitchen in Federal Hill, said the app is a way to expand access to good meals for people experiencing food insecurity.

“I would rather have the food not go to waste and charge less, or even have some way I can give some food away, rather than it going in the garbage,” Ames said. “I just feel like there’s so many hungry people out here to throw away food.”

About 10.5% of U.S. households were food insecure in 2020, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Each Too Good To Go surprise bag costs approximately one-third of its original value, with prices typically ranging from $4-6 per bag.

Ames said people of all income levels should have a chance to taste what Baltimore’s culinary scene has to offer, and Too Good To Go gives them that opportunity.

“Even though it’s a luxury to be able to go out to eat, I think that people should be able to afford to do that as well,” she said.

The bags not only satiate people’s hunger but they also give more people an opportunity to find joy in food, said Rosalyn Vera, owner of the Mexican restaurant Cocina Luchadoras in Fells Point.

“If they can have a nice hot meal with them, I think that works … At least from Cocina Luchadoras, they’re going to get really good meals because we do care,” Vera said. “If we have a tamal or chips or salsa, something will help.”

Part of the fun of buying a meal through the app is not knowing exactly what you’re going to eat until you open the bag, Too Good To Go officials said.

In Baltimore, the contents of a bag could range from vegan mac n’ cheese, soy “ribs” and “chicken tenders,” and “crab” cakes made with seitan, a wheat protein, from Land of Kush; tamales, chips, salsas and guacamole from Cocina Luchadoras; slow-baked turkey wings and cornbread from SweetPeaz; or whatever items the restaurant of choice has extra that day.

The app has also helped attract new customers and lead to additional sales, Vera said.

She recalls getting coffee one morning down the street at New York Bakery & Crepes, another Too Good To Go participant, when a woman arrived to pick up a surprise bag she had ordered. In addition to the bag, the woman ended up buying about $20 worth of more products from the bakery on the spot.

The discounted leftovers give people an inexpensive sample from restaurants they may not have tried before, and could entice those new customers to come back for more, Vera said.

“You might as well give them something of your product for $3 and let them try it,” she said. “And then they’re like, ‘Oh yeah, this is really good. Now I know about it. Now let me try something else.’”

For Vera, the price of selling leftovers is an investment in her community. And in turn, the community returns the favor.

“The most important thing about our business is that we just focus on the positive,” she said. “You might think ‘Well, $3 is not worth it.’ But that $3 is worth it when you are actually investing a little bit by giving back, and the community gives back because they buy back.”