This sounds cool - I just downloaded the app, but it doesn’t look like there are any participants near me locally. What about you? It sounds like Market Misfits, sort of, but for restaurant take-out. TL/RD - an app that matches you at the end of the day with restaurants that didn’t sell all their food. You get a discounted “surprise bag.” https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/frugal-foodie-shares-incredible-hack-121500959.html
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That reminds me of the time back in college when a couple of roommates and I were in a KFC at closing time. We started flirting with a couple of employees and had convinced them that since they were going to have to throw out a lot of food after we left, they may as well sell it to us at a sharp discount. We had negotiated a 50% reduction for a LOT of food when the manager came out, saw how much they had started to box up and threw a wet blanket over the whole thing.
That’s sad that the manager would rather have trashed the food than sold it to you at a discount. Sounds like a power trip.
Or you know, a manager who didn’t want to lose their job. Questions definitely would have been asked by corporate for selling a huge amount of food at a steep discount.
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I suppose.
I love the idea of the app though. So much of our landfill is food waste. So much of our waste is food waste. This seems like a win win situation, so long as it’s properly vetted from the outset.
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It’s a good idea in theory.
But in practice it can lead to all sorts of mischief and weird incentives.
Case in point. I used to be a baker a Souplantation (remember them?). At closing time, we would always set out plastic bags and invite the diners to take home as many muffins/cornbread/etc. that were leftover. For obvious reasons, employees were prohibited from taking home “leftovers”. But that never stopped a “closing baker” from baking, ahem, extra muffins right around closing time and have their friends who were conveniently dining that night take home the leftovers. And then share the leftovers when everyone got home later that night.
Balderdash, you say? Well, I for one know that it did happen.
A good idea in theory no doubt.
But us humans can never get out of our own way.
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I downloaded the app. In my area of Chicago there are about a dozen places showing as available for pickup. Given that it’s barely mid-afternoon, and a quite a few of these places have only been open for a handful of hours, I’m assuming most of this is from last night. I assumed the bags would be put up an hour or so before close, not held over until the next day given that it’s food that should have been wasted out.
Most of the bags available appear to be pizza or donuts, neither of which appeal much to me personally.
I like the idea of this app, but for my area/neighborhood specifically it doesn’t have a whole lot.
That’s what I found for me, as well. Maybe with word of mouth, service areas will expand.
I don’t disagree with you, and in theory it’s great to sell that food at a discount. I’m never going to judge a worker for not wanting to lose their job or assume they are on a power trip though. I used to manage a coffee shop in college. If I had sold off our leftover pastries at a deep discount, I would have gotten in very big trouble with our home office and my district manager. I would have been told it’s not my product to decide what to do with, and if there was that much waste on a daily basis, we’d be looking at why the ordering was so off.
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I’m a believer in not letting perfect get in the way of good.
I worked at a Roy Rogers as a teen, and this was also the rule there, for the same reason. In fact, starting about an hour before close, we were permitted to cook only to order.
I have this app on my phone, and one of these days I’m actually going to use it.
Would love if you share your experience.
In fairness to the manager, we had managed to talk the employees into selling us stuff that they would not have had to throw out, eg pies and cole slaw. He may have allowed us to buy the stuff that was going to be tossed, but I don’t remember: it’s been over 40 years!
The second I actually get something, I will be all over the damn place about it!
I have the app and go thru spurts of using it. Pastry and baked goods can be over represented and there is some stuff that you can’t pick up until 9:30P or so at which time I’m usually in my jammies. But there are a couple of good places that I follow. You need to be quick and get your timing right because the good ones sell out very fast.
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Where are you? I’m curious where the app has a presence.
Alexandria, VA. Close-in DC 'burb
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Makes sense. I’m 100 miles from the nearest big metro, although my little town is nearly 100K people. But no takers just yet. Or it could be I’m misunderstanding how it works, because I only checked what was available when I downloaded the app. It might’ve been the wrong time of day, and there might have been some restaurants pop up nearer to nightime.
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You can change the radius of your search results but it sounds like maybe your area just isn’t there yet
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