SPAR International is delighted to announce another significant milestone in its partnership with Too Good To Go, having now saved 2,500,000 meals across European markets. Since the inception of the international partnership in December 2020, the collaboration between SPAR and the social impact company has expanded to fourteen overlapping markets, playing a key role in helping SPAR retailers distribute surplus food that could otherwise go to waste. The partnership now sees over 2,360 stores actively curbing food waste with this innovative digital solution.

In line with SPAR’s ethos of ‘better together,’ Too Good To Go’s app solution enables customers to pick up bags filled with quality products close to expiry at a much-reduced price, thereby helping SPAR reduce food waste. This option has proven to be particularly impactful for fresh foods and short shelf-life items.

Food waste exacerbates the climate change crisis since it creates a significant greenhouse gas (GHG) footprint, with food production, transportation, and handling generating significant Carbon Dioxide (CO2) emissions.

In 2022, new developments within SPAR markets have boosted the success of this partnership. After successfully trialling the Too Good To Go app solution for several months, SPAR Scotland rolled out this option in all 107 company-owned stores. SPAR Italy partner Gruppo 3A offers products to consumers using this app solution in 22 stores. After rolling out the Too Good To Go app solution in October 2021, SPAR Austria had by August 2022 saved more than 700,000 meals from going to waste. SPAR Netherlands has saved over 500,000 meals from going to waste by October 2022. These savings have avoided more than 1,8 million kg of CO2 and 1,4 million kg of CO2 emissions across the two markets, respectively.

Award-winning partnership

In March this year, SPAR was honoured to be awarded the Best Connected Retail Solution by EHI, a research, training, and consultancy institute for the retail industry. The award recognizes retail enterprises that connect online and offline worlds. The collaboration between SPAR and Too Good To Go to tackle food waste by offering consumers a digital solution led to winning this valued award. The other two winners selected this year were a textile manufacturer and a clothing brand which offer connected retail solutions.

To read more about SPAR’s overall responsible retailing strategy, click on this link. An outline of the areas we focus on within our environmental impact reduction programme can be read here.