Asda is extending its partnership with surplus food marketplace Too Good To Go to just under 1,000 stores this month.
Too Good To Go app users will be able to purchase “surplus but still edible” Asda food “at a fraction of its original price” in the form of surprise bags. The bags contain an assortment of food items that would otherwise go to waste, including chilled items, ready meals, food to go, prepared fruit or salads, bakery products, or produce with use by dates such as dairy, meat, fish or poultry.
Asda’s rollout covers its supermarkets and Asda Express stores, as well as the foodservice sites located in Asda stores such as Leon, Greggs, Sbarro and Subway.
Surprise bags offered from larger supermarkets will be available for £3.30 and will include minimum £9 worth of goods. Bags from Express stores and foodservice partners will vary in price depending on the contents, but could include breakfast items, lunch, and dinner food.
To purchase the surprise bags, customers search for a nearby participating Asda store in the Too Good To Go app and collect within the allotted time window.
“We’re delighted to be bringing Too Good To Go to more sites across our estate and our foodservice partners, as we remain committed to reducing food waste through innovative solutions,” said Sam Dickson, Asda VP for commercial strategy, operations & own brand. “We’ve already seen great uptake from customers using Too Good To Go, and experienced the impact it can make towards reducing food waste.
“Alongside our existing food waste reduction partners, Too Good To Go will play an important role in continuing the progress we’ve made to date in minimising waste and supporting customers, communities and charities,” she added.
The partnership is part of Asda’s “continued efforts to build a portfolio of solutions and partners to help redistribute or redirect surplus food from going to waste” it said, and adds to the retailer’s “existing ‘back of store’ donation process”.
In June, Asda entered a new three-way partnership with long-standing food redistribution charity FareShare and local food sharing app Olio. That partnership sees Olio’s ‘food waste heroes’ connected with their local Asda store to collect surplus food when it can’t be collected by local charities.
Asda said it aims to double the amount of surplus food redistributed through the initiative. The business continues to target a 20% reduction in waste by 2025.
Last month, Too Good To Go hit the milestone, having saved 40 million surprise bags from going to waste, as it continues to secure major retailer partnerships.
In August, Morrisons extended its partnership with the app, offering surprise bags for purchase from nearly 1,000 Morrisons Daily convenience stores. Morrisons was the first supermarket partner of Too Good To Go, having launched the service in 2019. Since then, the partnership has expanded to cover nearly 500 supermarkets across the UK, including Morrisons Market Kitchen and cafés, and has saved 2.3 million surprise bags of food from being wasted.
Booths joined Too Good To Go in February, following an initial pilot with the platform in November which received a positive reaction from customers. Aldi, Spar, several regional Co-ops, and a swathe of convenience and independent stores are also on the platform.
Greggs, Pret a Manger, Costa Coffee and Greene King are among some of the other hospitality companies to list their surplus products with the app.
“Our team is absolutely thrilled to be rolling out our partnership with Asda, helping to combat food waste and provide great value to customers,” said Sophie Trueman, country director at Too Good To Go UK and Ireland. “At Too Good To Go we believe that saving food from going to waste is a win-win-win – businesses can recover the sunk cost of would-be wasted food, consumers can get good food for less, and with one simple action, we’re collectively doing something great for the planet by stopping that food from ending up in landfill.”
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