Too Good To Go (TGTG) is an app-based food marketplace. It was founded in Denmark in 2015 and came to the United States in October of 2020. According to their website, they started operations in Chicago on July 13, 2021, though according to some friends who have lived in the city since well before 2021 and have been trying to use TGTG since then, it was somewhere around summer of 2023 that it had enough restaurants on the app to be viable.
The idea of TGTG is that local places that sell food (such as grocery stores, restaurants, and convenience stores) can put on mystery bags that are made up of food that would otherwise be thrown away and sell it at a discounted price. You don’t necessarily know what you will be getting. The discount is usually somewhere around one-third of the list price, though it can vary slightly depending on the store. And yes, as a student on a budget, there is an obvious appeal to cheap food, even aside from any potential benefits of decreasing food waste. So, let’s talk about TGTG from the perspective of someone who uses it regularly. Please note that I will be focusing on the Chicago experience. Other cities around the world also have TGTG, and I assume will have somewhat similar issues, but my commentary may not be universal.
First, the good: You get a lot of food for cheap. A lot. I once got a bag of 27 homemade bagels for about $6 plus tax. While this was a more extreme case, usually I can get at least two or three meals out of a $6 TGTG order. Given current grocery store prices, this is sometimes less money than I’d spend on cooking my own food, and certainly the cheapest way to get a treat once in a while.
I’m not actually certain about whether it minimizes food waste, though – and this is where I start to criticize the app a bit more. On several occasions, I highly suspect the food was made for TGTG orders. I think the most egregious examples were Molly’s Cupcakes, who had an entire refrigerator for preparing TGTG orders, and Slice Factory, who just gave me three fresh slices of pizza out of the oven. I don’t mind getting three fresh slices of pizza for less than one would’ve been. But it undercuts the idea that this is about food waste.
The most oft-cited issue is allergies. When you don’t know what you’re getting, it can make it hard to know if something would be safe for you to eat. A few places offer things like gluten-free bags or dairy-free bags, but those are the exception. However, there are a lot of other problems, too.
Unlike services like Door Dash or UberEats, TGTG doesn’t offer delivery. This makes sense as a cost-saving measure, especially given much of the appeal is the massive discount. However, one of my friends has mobility issues, and it makes it almost inaccessible for her – it’s hard for her to travel enough to make this worthwhile. There also is a discrepancy in where TGTG businesses can be found. It’s not surprising that they’re less common in areas considered to be a food desert. At least from what I’ve seen, though, it’s still uncommon in poorer neighborhoods, even those not considered a food desert. Trying to pay can cause problems, too – while Visa, Mastercard, Discover, and American Express are considered the four major credit cards in the United States, TGTG doesn’t take Discover. I’ve also faced stigma from basically everyone around me in the situation. Several restaurants refused to check out my order until there was no more line, and at least Fabulous Freddie’s tried to tell me they don’t even do TGTG orders. They do, and they were incredibly rude to me throughout the transaction. Most customers were also rude. I heard a lot of snide, behind-my-back comments about how restaurants should be serving real customers, especially in nicer areas. I also had security try to remove me from a food hall once, because I kept walking around while looking for my pick-up restaurant and apparently looked “suspicious”. I won’t pretend that using TGTG is a comfortable experience socially. Finally, buried in the terms of service, is a small clause: They can cancel your order without warning. You are entitled to a refund, but it’s entirely possible that you can show up and they tell you they don’t have food for you, and I have friends this has happened to.
I do use TGTG regularly, and I have no intention of changing this. As I write this, I’m eating one of the bagels from the ungodly large bag I mentioned earlier. It can be a great way to save money on food while also getting something a bit nicer once in a while. My goal of writing this isn’t to try and tell people not to use TGTG. But as it becomes a more popular way to order food with a lot of new restaurants, I want to give people an honest perspective of what using it looks like, so you can make an informed call on this.
