Too Good To Go, a company that partners with businesses to sell surplus food at a discount, is expanding its service to all 14 Whole Foods Market locations across Canada.

Users can buy an assortment of prepared meals or baked goods at one-third of their value. Whole Foods wanted “to ensure that food isn’t going to waste” while “also maintaining high levels of sustainability,” Sarah Soteroff, a senior public relations manager in the U.S. and Canada for Too Good To Go, said in an interview.

Austin, Texas-headquartered Whole Foods, which has stores in the Greater Toronto Area, Metro Vancouver, Victoria and Ottawa, has the goal of halving its food waste by 2030.

Copenhagen-based Too Good To Go aims to promote a more sustainable lifestyle by cutting food waste, shrinking the amount of food that ends up in landfills and the resulting greenhouse gas emissions.

It has partnered with over 14,000 locations in Canada, Soteroff said. Partners include Tim Hortons, Metro, Longo’s, 7-Eleven, the University of Laval, and other restaurants, convenience stores and independent businesses.

Having launched in Canada in July 2021, the company now operates in every province and has since saved eight million meals from waste, with half of that in 2024 alone, Soteroff said.

How to save on Too Good To Go

Too Good To Go app users can access the deals by finding Whole Foods locations on a map which reveals how many ‘Surprise Bags’ are available. The user can reserve a package and is informed of the value. Once reserved, the user has two hours to pick up their purchase.

Users can choose between two kinds of Surprise Bags:

• a prepared foods bag of soups, salads and ready-to-eat meals valued at $30 for $9.99; and
• a bakery package of muffins, bread, scones and cookies for $6.99, valued at $21.

“You’re not going to know the full breakdown of what’s in your bag,” Soteroff said. This builds anticipation akin to unboxing and haul videos that have gained popularity on social media, a trend Too Good To Go fans are also following, she added.

Too Good To Go attempts to chip away at the millions of tonnes of food wasted by Canadians per year at a time when food inflation has led to hunger and financial stress for many people.

Each bag bought from the app saves the equivalent of 2.7 kilograms of carbon dioxide (CO2) on average, Soteroff said. By saving food on the verge of disposal from landfill, it is prevented from breaking down into methane, a powerful planet-warming gas.

Whole Foods is working toward its 2030 food waste target by repurposing “imperfect produce” into prepared foods, donating meals to communities and sending food waste to make biogas.

“Our collaboration with Too Good To Go builds on this work by increasing access to good food at a great value and we’re thrilled to bring this program to our Canadian customers," Caitlin Leibert, vice-president of sustainability at Whole Foods, said in a release. 

Maintaining the U.S. success in Canada

The Canadian collaboration is a continuation of a relationship both companies forged in the U.S. in July 2024 across 495 stores.

“In partnering with us, they’ve been able to justify some of the work that they have done in reducing the food waste at the store level while also recognizing that they can’t do everything by themselves so they need an external partner for that,” Soteroff said.

The partnership has been “seamless” to date, she said, with 98 per cent of the Whole Foods Surprise Bags in the U.S. being purchased. 

In the U.S., over 650,000 meals have been saved to date — approximately US$11 million in savings and offsetting more than 1,700 tonnes of CO2.

The success gave both companies the confidence to extend into Canada, Soteroff explained.

The productive partnership also emboldened both businesses to consider putting more options on the app. More categories of groceries may be added: produce bags of fruits and vegetables; pantry items such as cereals, breads and chips; drinks, juices and dairy products; and bulk items like nuts.

Too Good To Go is focusing on expanding in the Canadian grocery market and adding more variety, Soteroff said.