By Emily Sehati

“Approximately 85 [percent] of the food that isn’t used in a typical American restaurant is thrown out while only a small percentage is recycled or donated,” cites Move For Hunger. With this in mind, nearly 40 [percent] of all food in America is wasted, according to Feeding America. And as one can guess, most of it goes to a landfill. These shocking statistics shine [a] light on an even more dangerous reality: the perpetual and normalized amounts of waste that cause our economy to lose 130 billion meals and more than $408 billion in food thrown away.

Emma McKenzie, Grace Wilson, Sofia Grey and I are working to reduce food waste one download, takeout order, and purchase at a time. The solution? Too Good To Go: an app that works to eliminate restaurant food waste while benefiting consumers through coordinated efforts. Restaurants create “surprise bags” with food that wasn’t sold, selling it to users on the app for a third of the price. Not only do consumers save money on takeout and groceries, but restaurants do not resort to throwing away food and save money in the process.

As we work to reduce waste on a local level, McKenzie, Wilson, Grey and I are looking to recruit local restaurants to join this initiative. In addition, we will be promoting the app through Ventura College [and] social media whilst going [from] restaurant to restaurant to promote the app on both ends, with consumers and restaurants. In just the year 2021, 29 million meals were saved with Too Good To Go. We hope to keep this momentum going, encouraging these habits and practices in Ventura.

While just a small step, by beginning collaborative efforts, restaurants can begin making ethical environmental and business decisions that benefit all parties. Too Good To Go is available on Google Play and the Apple Store.