Detroit Restaurants Look to Combat Food Waste With ‘Surprise Bags’

Restaurants throw away a staggering amount of food each day. But about 70 restaurants in Metro Detroit have found a unique way to cut down on wasted food by offering surprise boxes.

The Startling Statistics

It's estimated that 22 to 33 billion pounds of restaurant food gets thrown away each year in the United States.

In 2022, Michigan restaurants tossed about 2.8 million tons of food into the garbage. That's mostly food that was prepared and not sold, but deemed not fresh enough to serve the following day.

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Yet in Michigan, more than one million people face food insecurity on a regular basis. One out of nine adults and one out of eight children in our state periodically rely on food assistance programs, according to Feeding America.

There's an App for That

In an effort to reduce the amount of food that gets wasted each day, an international app company has released 'Too Good to Go.' The app connects restaurants and food businesses that may have surplus food at the end of the day with customers willing to buy 'surprises bags' of leftover food.

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Customers who purchase these bags pay only half of the menu price but do not know what food they're receiving. In this video from WXYZ, customers and restauranteurs talk about their experience using the program so far.

Dozens of Restaurants are Participating

The program launched at the beginning of June, and so far about 70 Detroit area restaurants are on board.

Outside the Metro Detroit Area, there are just a few restaurants that are participating. In the Flint area, Big Apple Bagel locations in Davison and Fenton are part of the program.

We want to encourage more area restaurants to embrace this technology and cut down on the amount of food that lands in the garbage each day.