Derby’s Cathedral Quarter and St Peters Quarter Business Improvement Districts (BIDs) have teamed up with the international social impact company Too Good To Go to help and support more city centre businesses to reduce their food waste.

Hospitality and food retail businesses in the two BID areas are able to sign up to the scheme free of charge for the first year, by virtue of their BID membership, and be part of the free mobile app to sell surplus food and drink at the end of service rather than throwing it away.

Customers pre-order a bag – the contents of which are a surprise and then businesses put together their ‘magic bags’ of what is essentially, surplus food.

There are currently 6.2m UK users of the app and the 5,000 local users have accessed the system more than 700,000 so far from the 20 city-based outlets which are currently offering food and drink.

Research shows that food waste is directly responsible for 8% of greenhouse gas emissions. However, by selling three magic bags a day for a year, it is estimated that a business would reduce food waste by nearly 11,000 kg, save 27,000kg of CO2 and save £30,000 in waste disposal costs.

Martin Langsdale MBE, chair of the Cathedral Quarter BID and Helen Wathall, chair of St Peters Quarter BID explained that, as well as taking tangible steps to help the environment, hospitality and food retail businesses would also have access to new customers and additional income streams – further boosting their post-lockdown recovery.

They said:

“Joining forces with the increasingly popular Too Good To Go initiative and enabling businesses in the BID areas to join free of charge for the first year makes perfect sense both in terms of business recovery and in reducing the environmental impact of throwing away perfectly good food.

This is therefore a tangible way for the BIDs to help our local businesses reduce food waste and disposal costs, attract new customers and increase their profile as a sustainable brand.

We are delighted to be partnering with Too Good To Go in this initiative and we look forward to BID businesses joining the growing number of local, regional and national businesses who are already committed to this venture.”

Among the local businesses who are already part of the Too Good To Go scheme is BEAR in Iron Gate. Co-founder Craig Bunting said:

“We partnered with Too Good To Go back in 2019, and, even though we’ve been slowed down by lockdown, so far we’ve managed to rescue well over 1,000 meals and reduced around 2500 kg of CO2.
This just goes to show how small, easy changes make such a huge difference. It’s such a brilliant initiative for business to reduce their environmental impact and for customers to try out yummy goodies at all kinds of places at a lower price."

Too Good To Go UK managing director Paschalis Loucaides concluded:

"We’re thrilled to be partnering with The Cathedral Quarter and St Peter’s Quarter BIDs to help even more hospitality and food businesses in Derby to fight food waste.
If we’re to reverse the impact of climate change, reducing food waste is the number one action we can take and I can’t wait to see the impact we can make together through this exciting collaboration."