Too Good To Go Launches AI-Powered End-to-End Solution to help Grocery Retailers Manage their Surplus Food

Too Good To Go, the social impact company behind the world's largest marketplace for surplus food, announces the launch of Too Good To Go Platform. This modular end-to-end surplus food management solution enables grocery retailers, from hypermarkets to convenience stores, to unlock value from excess inventory. Powered by AI, Too Good To Go Platform seamlessly tracks and helps to redistribute surplus; and is the only system of its kind, thanks to its integration with the world's largest consumer marketplace for surplus food, with over 85 million registered users.

According to the European Grocery Retailing Institute, costs associated with food waste amount to an average of nearly 2% of grocery retailers’ net sales, almost equaling their average margins. "At Too Good To Go we partner with some of the world's biggest names in grocery retail, such as Carrefour, Auchan, SPAR, ALDI, Coop and many more. Every day, we drive many thousands of users into retail stores, helping our partners generate revenue and footfall from surplus food. With the introduction of Too Good To Go Platform, we can now also support their in-store inventory management, helping them make a significant difference to both their bottom line and the reduction of food waste,” says Mette Lykke, CEO of Too Good To Go.

5 Modules for Streamlined and Tailored Deployment

Too Good To Go Platform currently integrates 5 modules in a single interface, offering partners a pick-and-choose modular solution to tailor their surplus food management strategy. These modules include Expiry Date Management, Recommendations, Intelligent Discounting, Marketplace, and Donations.

“Processes for expiry date checks and in-store discounting can be laborious, resource-intensive and error-prone; especially at scale,” explains Chris MacAulay, Country Director for Too Good To Go US,  “Too Good To Go Platform’s modular approach places in-store operations at the centre, enabling easy customisation and leveraging technology and AI to bring efficiency to daily routines,” adds MacAulay.

How it Works: Key Features

Expiry Date Management 

Grocery retailer employees daily spend valuable working hours manually date-checking products. Digitising expiry date verification makes in-store inventory management significantly more efficient.

Too Good To Go Platform’s algorithms generate and present on the PDA a near-expiry product shortlist for store employees, clearly organised by shelf location, daily or weekly, depending on the products’ shelf life. Manual checks are reduced to only 1-7% of all products; up to 1 hour per employee, per day, is saved as a result. The automated process reduces human error and the quantity of expired products on the shelves, resulting in higher customer satisfaction and less food waste.

Recommendations

Through the PDA, Too Good To Go Platform recommends store employees exactly what to do with each near-expired product, based on pre-set, customisable rules and preferences tailored to the retail store: for example, print a discount sticker at an optimised discount rate to sell in-store; create a Surprise Bag to sell on the Too Good To Go Marketplace; or donate the item. Rules and recommendations can easily be set at headquarter or store level, either by category or SKU.

This systematic approach leaves the employee with little room for error at the moment of allocation, while offering multiple distribution channels ensures higher chances of surplus food being successfully allocated.

Intelligent Discounting

"Rules for discounting don’t factor elements such as stock or historical data, to determine how likely a short-dated product is to be sold in a particular store, at a given time. Most grocery retailers simply print a sticker at their expiry date or one day before, at a fixed discount rate. They do it this way, leaving significant revenue behind, because it can be challenging for employees to remember or correctly action tailored rules for each SKU,” adds MacAulay

Too Good To Go Platform’s AI processes large sets of data to optimise discount levels and apply granular discount rates, at a SKU level, systematically improving revenue from close-to-expiry discounted products.

By connecting to a mobile printer, employees can then instantly print the sticker to sell the product in-store, and the discounting data can seamlessly be sent to the store's ERP system. The discount stickers can display the product name, the new price, the amount discounted, and include a new barcode, for easy checkout. 

Too Good To Go Marketplace

Directly from their PDA, store employees can easily allocate surplus food items to Too Good To Go Surprise Bags and upload them onto the marketplace, where local users are ready to buy and collect.  

MacAulay for Too Good To Go US: “A lot of users that we bring to our partner stores visit that store for the first time. According to our data, more than half of the users who collect a Surprise Bag, were otherwise not planning to visit that store that day. Additionally, nearly half of Surprise Bag customers end up purchasing additional items in-store."

Donations

With Too Good To Go Platform, store managers can download ready-to-analyse CSV files with the list of products donated, or connect via API to their 3rd-party donation application or ERP. 

Tech-Enabled Inventory Optimisation

Available globally, Too Good To Go Platform supports plug-and-play implementation. It also offers integration options, allowing retailers to seamlessly connect it into their systems. 

Too Good To Go Platform runs on most popular PDAs, such as Zebra's. Tim Stoddard, General Manager and SVP EMEA of Zebra Technologies, says: “Independent software vendor partners, like Too Good To Go, play an important role in how Zebra solves problems for retail and hospitality businesses. Together, we’re enabling customers to optimise their inventory, elevate the customer experience, and fight food waste with hardware and software solutions that make a positive difference.”

Monoprix, who has been partnering with Too Good To Go since 2017 in the French market, and saved 1.2 million meals from going to waste already, was the pioneer testing Platform in 250 locations. Isabelle Boudard, CSR Chief Department at Monoprix, explains: “Too Good To Go Platform has introduced a new dynamic to the fight against food waste by providing an all-in-one solution that acts across the entire value chain. Our teams continue to innovate collaboratively to have an even greater impact in the future. This is evident in the use of artificial intelligence in addressing food waste. Too Good To Go's ability to adapt to our business constraints and meet our store excellence criteria is key to the success of our collaboration.”

In November, Apple awarded the Too Good To Go app at the global 2023 App Store Awards, proof of the company’s tech credentials. The app was recognised for its exceptional user experience and profound impact on society. "This award served as evidence that, through technology, companies can deliver a strong social impact. Now, from expiry date tracking to final distribution, Too Good To Go Platform enables data-driven decision-making on food waste reduction. It is a win-win-win: for the planet, for people, and for profit,” concludes Lykke. 

About Too Good To Go

Too Good To Go is a certified B Corp social impact company that helps 150,000 active business partners unlock value from surplus food and reduce food waste. Too Good To Go operates the world's largest marketplace for surplus food, active in 17 countries across Europe and North America. The company partners with some of the industry's biggest players across Grocery Retail, Bakery Cafe, Fast Casual, QSR and Manufacturing, including Carrefour, ALDI, Unilever, Starbucks, SPAR, Costa Coffee, PAUL Group, and Biedronka.