ediblesf.com | 25 IN San Francisco, there’s no shortage of excellent food. But abundance has a downside: surplus. At more than 3,000 restaurants and grocery stores citywide, that can mean leftover pastries after brunch, prepped curry that never left the kitchen, and produce nearing its sell-by date. Too Good To Go, a Denmark-based app that arrived in the U.S. in 2020, offers a clever solution: it connects food businesses with customers willing to buy unsold food at a discount, packaged as “surprise bags” sold at a fraction of their retail value. In a city obsessed with both food and innovation, the app has found a uniquely receptive audience. San Francisco is now its second-largest U.S. market after New York, leading the country in high ratings, low cancellation rates, and total meals saved. The Art of the Surprise Too Good To Go’s premise is simple: browse the app, reserve a bag, and pick it up during a designated window. These “surprise bags” are exactly that: mystery bundles that might include meals, groceries, pastries, ice cream, or whatever’s left at the end of service, bundled at a steep discount. While some vendors note what type of food to expect, most keep the details vague. That unpredictability is part of the draw. The contents vary, but the value is typically listed in the app and often runs three to five times the purchase price, with most bags costing around $6. For popular spots, timing matters. The app will often prompt users to “check back” at a specific time, but with only a handful available at a time, they can disappear in seconds. (We found that setting an alarm on our phone is the best way to ensure we don’t miss out.) At Burma Superstar, we picked up our bag mid-afternoon through the side window—no wait, no fuss. The bag included a generous portion of Burmesestyle beef curry and coconut rice, roughly $30 worth of food for $6. It’s the kind of dish we might normally skip for our usual chicken biryani, but it was rich, comforting, and worth ordering outright. Brenda’s Meat & Three, a soul food staple we love but don’t always get around to, had a mid-afternoon pickup at the host stand, just after the lunch rush. Inside: two pieces of crisp fried chicken, plus mashed potatoes and coleslaw, a solid, satisfying haul, and a gamble that definitely paid off. Not every bag is wildly different; many follow a familiar formula. But there’s always an unexpected element: a dish you wouldn’t normally order, a side you didn’t expect, a place you’ve walked past but never gone into. Some bags are more plentiful than others, but even the simpler ones offer value and a glimpse into a neighborhood spot you might not have tried otherwise. Users rate San Francisco vendors among the highest nationwide, and local staples like Arizmendi Bakery, Happy Donuts, Jane the Bakery, and Luke’s Local remain some of the most consistently sought-after on the app. From Surplus to Sustainability The scale of food waste is staggering: nearly 40% of all food produced globally goes uneaten. In the U.S., that’s an estimated 130 billion meals a year, along with the energy, water, and labor required to produce them. Food waste also contributes to climate change, accounting for up to 10% of global greenhouse gas emissions and 25% of all freshwater resources. Every meal saved keeps about 2.7 kg of CO₂e out of the air, conserves 214 gallons of water, and avoids 2.8 square meters of land use per year. Too Good To Go frames its mission around this impact. In San Francisco, that mission has gained traction: around the time of its U.S. debut, the app had already helped save over 250,000 meals from more than 2,000 local partners. But this isn’t just environmental work; it’s practical for businesses. For small restaurants and grocers, surplus food represents a significant loss of revenue. Too Good To Go changes that. It transforms unsold items from loss into revenue and offers another way for businesses to connect with customers. Of course, selling surplus food isn’t the only way to keep it from going to waste. Nonprofits like ExtraFood take another route—collecting unsold food from grocery stores, caterers, and schools and delivering it directly to organizations serving people in need. Monica Revisita, ExtraFood’s Director of Programs, welcomes any effort to keep food out of the landfill, but she also sees the trade-offs. “Ultimately, it’s all about reducing food waste. That’s the most important thing,” she said. “But the sad part is that this food waste has become part of our social safety net. As we become more efficient at reducing food waste or figuring out other ways to make a profit off the excess, we’re taking the food away from our social safety net.” Luke’s Local: A Grocer That Gets It At Luke’s Local, a small-format grocery chain with four San Francisco locations, food waste reduction isn’t a marketing point; it’s a structural priority. According to COO Kayleigh Kahn, the company wastes just 2.5% of its inventory, compared to the industry average of around 10%. “Reducing waste has been a core part of our operation from day one,” said Kahn. “We order strategically, keep our footprint small, and move inventory quickly. Too Good To Go helps us minimize what’s left.” That partnership has been especially helpful as Luke’s expands. “For our newer stores, it’s a flexible way to handle unpredictability while we learn what people are actually buying,” she said. “We can have eight bags one day, two the next—it gives us a buffer while we figure out the flow.” And while the revenue helps, it’s not the main draw. “The fact that we’re able to sell it for a small price is kind of just gravy,” Kahn added. “Mostly, it helps us waste less and lets more people enjoy more of the food we already have.” A Smarter Way to Share the Surplus What does it say about a city when it needs an app to manage its leftovers? In San Francisco, where food luxury and food insecurity often exist side by side, Too Good To Go turns that imbalance into access, offering a quality meal for under $7 and a second life for food that might otherwise go to waste. Still, hunger-relief organizations like ExtraFood say the need for donated food far outpaces what’s available. Revisita believes that closing the gap will require investment beyond surplus recovery. “Unless we start putting more money into the social safety net, there will be less food available to those in need,” she said. It’s a reminder that food waste and hunger are connected but separate problems, and solving one doesn’t automatically fix the other. Too Good To Go may not address the systemic issues driving food insecurity, but it offers a real, immediate way to keep edible food from going to waste. In a city built on abundance, that matters—even if the bigger challenge remains making sure there’s enough for everyone.
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