In 2015 a small group of Danish entrepreneurs stared at towering piles of buffet leftovers and asked, “What if this waste could be value?” In Copenhagen they sketched out an idea: an app to rescue unsold food. By early 2016 Too Good To Go was born – a pocket-sized marketplace connecting restaurants, bakeries and grocery stores with hungry customers hungry for a bargain and a cause toogoodtogo.com
medium.com.
As CEO Mette Lykke explains, they weren’t just selling cheap meals, they were “taking an issue that everyone hates and turning it into a win for everyone.” foodnavigator.com foodnavigator.com
This was the bold mission from day one: turn surplus into opportunity, and fight food waste at scale.
Food waste is a global crisis. Every year roughly one-third of all food produced goes uneaten, fueling 8–10% of greenhouse emissions foodnavigator.com commons.wikimedia.org . The UK alone tosses 8.3 million tonnes of edible food annually commons.wikimedia.org.
Too Good To Go tackled this head-on with a win-win-win model: businesses reclaim revenue from unsold food, consumers enjoy quality meals at steep discounts, and the planet gains fewer emissions. “We are taking an issue that everyone loves and turning it into a win for everyone,” Lykke says – a mantra that guided their design foodnavigator.com.
From its first weeks in Denmark, the app was a hit. Hundreds of local cafes and bakeries uploaded “Magic Bags” of leftovers, and thousands of users snapped them up. The model spread: by late 2016 the team launched in Norway, the UK and France toogoodtogo.com.
Word-of-mouth and social buzz carried it forward. Rhetorical question: What could feel cooler than sharing your surprise bag haul on TikTok, knowing you saved three meals for $10? In fact, user-generated videos soon went viral – “For $10… three meals is a pretty good deal,” one TikTok reviewer marveled modernretail.co – and helped skyrocket Too Good To Go’s reach.
By 2025, Too Good To Go has become a global marketplace empire. The official impact tally is staggering: 100+ million registered users and 400+ million meals saved toogoodtogo.com toogoodtogo.com.
It works with 175,000 partner stores across 19 countries (Europe and North America) toogoodtogo.com. Major retailers and chains are on board – think Costa Coffee (UK), Carrefour and Lidl (Europe), Starbucks (US), among many others.
The brand even secured B Corp certification, embedding social impact into its DNA toogoodtogo.com. And it’s profitable: in 2023 Too Good To Go crossed the €100M annual revenue mark modernretail.co, proving you can do good and do well simultaneously.
Too Good To Go’s success rests on a simple, engaging platform. The app lets users dial in their location and pick-up time, then browse local “Surprise Bags” at a tapmedium.com. One click reserves and pays, and at the end of the day you collect your mystery bundle — a thrill that keeps users coming back. As the founders say, “You can’t always be sure what will be in your Surprise Bag… the surprise is part of the fun.”medium.com
This gamified twist has made rescuing food feel like a fun challenge, especially for younger, eco-conscious millennials and Gen Zers who love sharing their discoveries online. Every weekend, review posts and TikTok unboxings amplify the message: saving the planet can be exciting (and delicious).
Underneath the friendly UX lies powerful sustainability tracking. Consumers see real-time impact stats: how many meals they’ve saved, emissions avoided, etc. In fact, Too Good To Go recently added an impact tracker so “each consumer can see their up-to-the-minute savings and environmental impact”medium.com.
Behind the scenes, the team watches metrics like total meals saved, active stores and user growthmedium.com. This data-driven approach not only measures progress but fuels the mission – they can confidently say they’ve diverted carbon emissions equivalent to hundreds of thousands of flight trips.
| Too Good To Go built… | What you can build with Ordering.co… |
|---|---|
| Surplus food marketplace connecting unsold meals with hungry customers | Your own purpose-driven marketplace (e.g. food rescue, waste reduction, eco-friendly goods) |
| 100M+ users and 400M+ meals rescued | Launch in days: a no-code platform “to launch a scalable, automated marketplace” |
| 175,000 partners in 19 countries with brand-name chains (Costa, Carrefour, Starbucks…) | Fully customizable ordering platform (web & native apps) with payments, delivery, loyalty, etc. |
| Engaging “Surprise Bag” gamification (mystery bundle of food) | Flexible promo tools (coupons, challenges, loyalty) to gamify any behavior |
| Live impact counters (meals saved, CO₂ avoided) and certified B Corp status | Built-in analytics and ESG dashboards to track your marketplace’s social impact |
| A dream of “a planet with no food waste” | White-labeled solution to build your brand’s vision at global scale |
Every item in this table shows a lesson: Too Good To Go proved the appetite for eco-marketplaces. Now you can take the lead. Imagine launching a platform that rescues clothes, electronics, or any surplus as easily as Too Good To Go rescued sandwiches.
With Ordering.co’s all-in-one technology, founders can spin up a marketplace in weeks — no developers neededordering.co. Ordering.co provides the storefront, apps, payment gateway, delivery integration, and even loyalty and marketing toolsordering.co. In short, your vision + our tech = powerful impact.
Ready to fight waste (or drive any social mission) the marketplace way? Too Good To Go’s journey shows it’s possible: one surprise bag at a time. Now it’s your turn to disrupt an industry and build your own empire – with Ordering.co powering your marketplace.
“Turn waste into opportunity, and change lives while you do it,” says the Winning Mindset. Launch your sustainability-driven marketplace on Ordering.co today! Click here to get started.
Sources: Insights on Too Good To Go’s history and impact come from the company’s site and recent coverage toogoodtogo.com foodnavigator.com medium.commodernretail.co. Ordering.co feature data is from Ordering.co official documentationordering.coordering.co.