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July 23, 2024
Do Grocery Shoppers Want To Be Surprised by Surplus Food?
Whole Foods Market launched a new program that enables customers to purchase “surprise bags” of discounted surplus food to save money and minimize food waste.
The program represents a partnership with Copenhagen-based Too Good To Go, which describes itself as the world’s largest marketplace app for surplus food.
Whole Foods’ customers can choose from two options:
- Prepared Foods Surprise Bags: Containing soups and ready-to-eat meals, priced at $9.99 for a $30 value.
- Bakery Surprise Bags: Breads, muffins, scones, and cookies, priced at $6.99 for a $21 value.
Customers reserve and pay for the surprise bags through the Too Good To Go app, where they’ll view pickup window times. Pickup is usually the hour before stores close, according to Axios, though timing can vary.
App users will also see how many bags are available and whether they’re sold out. Each of the more than 450 Whole Foods locations participating in the program will offer four prepared foods bags and two bakery bags per store each day, Too Good To Go told Axios.
All bags contain products normally sold at that store location.
The program supports Whole Foods’ goal of cutting food waste in half by 2030. Whole Foods said it donated nearly 34 million pounds of food last year to food programs across the country. In the U.S., food waste is estimated at between 30% and 40% of the food supply, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
“As part of our purpose to nourish people and the planet, we continue to invest in new and innovative ways to keep unsold food out of our landfills and empower our customers to make environmentally conscious choices,” said Caitlin Leibert, VP of sustainability at Whole Foods, in a statement.
With more than 100 million registered users across the globe, Too Good To Go particularly supports local restaurants selling meals toward the end of the day that would otherwise go to waste. In New York City, hundreds of pizza parlors, bagel shops, and delis offer the service, with discounts usually reaching two-thirds of regular prices. Each establishment earns a rating from Too Good To Go users based on value, food quantity and quality, pickup speed, and staff friendliness.
For Too Good To Go, the Whole Foods’ partnership represents a further expansion into grocery, with overseas partners including Carrefour, ALDI, and Morrisons.
Chris MacAulay, VP of operations for North America at Too Good To Go, said, “A significant milestone, this collaboration allows us to give millions of consumers across the country a simple way to join the fight against food waste.”
Discussion Questions
Will discounted “surprise bags” of end-of-day excess food offer enough appeal to Whole Foods’ customers?
Do you see any complications, downsides, or limits in executing such as program?
Will apps such as Too Good To Go likely become a part of the solution to reducing food waste across the grocery channel?
Poll
Loading …BrainTrust
Keith Anderson
Founder, Decarbonizing Commerce
David Biernbaum
Founder & President, David Biernbaum & Associates LLC
Brian Numainville
Principal, The Feedback Group
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This is potentially a great way to secure discounts on food. The downside is that you don’t know what you’re getting – which is maybe not so much of a problem for basic items like bakery, but is more of an issue in categories like ready meals where people have more particular tastes. From what Whole Foods says, it sounds like there will not be many bags available per day (which is good as it shows Whole Foods wastage levels are not terrible) but it also means the service will be extremely hit and miss for a lot of people.
The complication I see is that, in taking food out of a clearly labeled location – like say “soup” in the soup section – you may be increasing the chances that it’s never sold (this, of course, assumes the ‘surprise bag’ idea doesn’t work out; I also think they’re getting into an “iffy” area with the labeling – much like stores with their “regularly priced at” sales, since the items would likely be deeply discounted in lieu of the program). Ultimately, this seems like an idea that just has to be tested to see if it will work, as I don’t think any amount of theorizing will give a meaningful answer.
Mystery bags are everywhere right now and customers love them. I have seen them retail for $100+ in independent fabric and craft stores, and at all price points in gift, apparel, and book shops. It’s a clever way to get rid of excess merchandise and it’s a great deal value-wise for shoppers.
I love the idea of mystery bags at Whole Foods but why would they need an outside source to provide contents for the mystery bags? Surely, the average Whole Foods location could create the bags in-house?
With only 6 bags per store per day, you’ll need to be quick!
I missed that part. That’s crazy.
“the program will offer four prepared foods bags and two bakery bags per store each day” sounds like designed scarity run amok, doesn’t it? Anyway: yeah you’d think six would be doable. Plus, a narrow “pickup window”…they seem to be doing everythig possible to make this not work.
Maybe it’s ‘greenwashing’ exercise! Sounds good. Doesn’t do much.
Well said
The bargain hunter shoppers will love this and its possible Too Good to Go will bring a few new bargain hunters to Whole Foods as the app has growing and loyal following and has been doing a lot of good in reducing food waste. Even Whole Foods customers like a bargain. Assuming Whole Foods makes enough to pay for the Too Good to Go commission and their in store operations aren’t severely impaired, there’s little downside to trying this out.
Promo platforms to move excess food is an idea with good intentions, and improves the bottom line. It’s especially fitting for low priced or deal driven grocers. But for grocers in the quality space this can have unintended consequences. If your primary brand promise is better tasting food, differentiated offerings, and good service, marked down food late in the day suggests to customers that your prices were maybe too high to begin with. Is your $15 rotisserie chicken with incredible spices really only worth the perception of $5 when customers see it in a bag at this price 2-3 days a week? Over the long haul this trains shoppers to wait for items to go on sale late in the day.
Someone at each grocer needs to own and protect the brand promise, and keep watch for promotions which create more harm than good.
I’m not so sure about this although I like the idea of cutting food waste. Bakery surprise bags might work but prepared foods is a tougher call – not sure I’d want a surprise in that area. But with only 6 total bags per day, not sure many people will get surprised.
Agree on both, Brian. Bakery could be the best candidate if it still tastes fresh. Prepared foods gets dicey, and “surprise” may not always be a good thing. There may be questions about how old the food is/was, but it also sends a message that the grocer is Ok that something could go out the door which is not up to high food tasting standards or the brand promise.
Providing shoppers with discounted surprises would work better if the “discount” were “free.” Even with discounts, the consumer will not enjoy value, unless they like every item in the bag. Whatever the consumer throws out without using makes each item in the bag less discounted. In other words, the value is only as good as the number of items used. – Db
“ …the value is only as good as the number of items used. ” Shoppers will figure that out quickly. At the end of the day, why not discount anything that might spoil?
Every effort a grocer makes to reduce food waste is a win.
Finding significant cost savings for customers is always a win.
Combining both efforts into this form of an offer is creative and apparently engaging customers in the right way.
I applaud the efforts of Too Good To Go and wish them well on their mission.
Interesting. There is merit to this idea and the positioning (don’t waste food) works for so many consumers. Like any interesting idea, how this translates from idea to successful execution remains to be seen.
The only “gotcha” this observer can introduce is there are so many consumers with restrictions (vegan, gluten free, vegetarian, and on and on it goes) that presenting a surprise bag that disappoints (“I don’t eat chcken!”) seems risky to me.
But still-love the idea!
I’m a bit flabbergasted. I don’t see how this works, even if the only goal is reducing food waste. Customers must be pretty privileged or have feline-like curiosity to make a $10.00 bet on a mystery bag of groceries. My opinion is all this will do is move the food waste issue from Whole Foods stores to their customers’ homes, where I suspect more than a little bit of this stuff will go in the trash. I think a better focus would be to find ways to support local food insecurity around their stores with fresh products.
Surplus food marketplaces and partnerships like these have emerged as a commercially viable way to begin to move the needle on food waste, which is a material driver of unrealized value and emissions.
It may not appeal to everyone, but price-motivated shoppers are always looking for disproportionate value. Especially with perishables, the economics work well for both shopper and grocer.
In fact, an entire ecosystem of surplus solutions has emerged to help retailers and brands realize more economic value:
As these capabilities proliferate and evolve, I see them becoming more aligned and integrated with other personalized promotions.
Such a program would work best in lower-income markets. Shoppers there would see an opportunity to save money, but they would not care as much — if at all — about reducing waste, in my opinion. Overall, however, most grocery shoppers don’t want to be surprised by the food they buy.
It’s unclear if the limited quantity of food bags is simply due to trial period or because Whole Foods really does not have much food waste.
Either way, with such a limited supply per store, it’s either going to turn consumers off and they will become disinterested or, the demand will spike and limited quantities will cause frustration.
If Whole Foods expects this to be a success, they would do well to clarify intended scale to manage consumer expectations.
On the other hand, I worry if this is taking food from local community shelters and homeless shelters that often rely on these end of day donations to feed the undeserved. It would be sad if Whole Foods turned those donations into a “surprise” profit.
Yes, this will absolutely appeal to Whole Foods Customers. As a year-long user of the Too Good To Go App, these offers can appeal to new segment of customers that are sustainably minded customers that may not have the budget or wish to pay full price for Bakery or Prepared Foods.
With all technology there is a learning curve, but it only takes one full transaction to learn the ropes. The consumer sees the number of bags available for each category earlier in the day at their convenience, they can reserve a bag hour in advance. There should not be a surprise at the store because the consumer would already have reserved it. Additionally, if there are several WFM stores in the area, you can also browse those stores in case your home store does not have inventory.
This strategy by Whole Foods does not sound very impactful at the store level but when you add it up across the chain annually, it can really help reduce food waste. Based on my rough calculations it would be close to 1 million meals/bags saved (985,500). It is reasonable to suggest that WFM may expand the number of bags after several months or running the program so the overall impact may be bigger. Other retailers will likely follow.
Surprise bags are popular among customers for their value and the excitement of discovering new products – I’ve seen first hand adoption, and the demand is super high for them in app. Also, Whole Foods’ environmentally conscious customers may particularly appreciate the sustainable aspect of reducing food waste.
However, challenges include ensuring product variety in the bags and maintaining consistent quality. Customers might sometimes receive less variety, like multiple bread types. It’s also essential to manage the quantity of items to avoid overstocking the bags, which could impact the program’s profitability and customer satisfaction.