Too Good To Go
UX Case Study
June 2024
Independent Project
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Too Good To Go wants to help reduce food waste but what if it could support your budgeting needs?
The what, how and why​
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As a former student, Too Good To Go seems like a great solution for meeting food needs while being economical. Too Good To Go works with local food and produce establishments to ensure that food that’s typically left at the end of the day does not go to waste and gets redistributed to consumers at a massively discounted price.
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The food is sorted into three categories:
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Recommended for you
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Save before it's too late
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New Surprise Bags
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The three categories have no "Sort" or "Filter" option to arrange the choices by date added, ratings or even price. Over time, they added in dedicated sections like:
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Supermarkets
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Baked Goods
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Meals
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Groceries ​
An app update sometime earlier this year was done — sorting establishments into Supermarkets, Baked Goods, Meals & Groceries.
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But even after the app update, when each of these categories is tapped, the food options cannot be sorted based on:
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the rating of the establishment, OR
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the cumulative price.
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The other issues that come up are that there are no options to:
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track average spending per week, OR
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set a budget for spending per week.
Too Good To Go has now introduced a feature called the 'Daily Reminder' which gives people an extra nudge to buy leftover food on certain days.
Screenshots of the 'Daily Reminder' feature below show that you can mark the days you can mark the days you need an extra reminder to save food.
A commendable feature: choosing what notifications you want to show up on your device or email. This includes the 'Daily reminder feature'.
What if we could enhance this feature with a budget planning add-on, especially for users who experience low food security?​
What's out there?
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Several companies are trying to tackle the problem of food waste like Karma, ResQ Club, or Flashfood. Misfits Market and Imperfect Foods on the other hand rescue food and produce that doesn’t meet the aesthetic standards of supermarkets and resell them directly to consumers. It has a designated delivery day and provides a price range for how much the groceries will cost. You have the option to choose exactly what goes into your cart. Unlike Too Good To Go, they don’t necessarily sell food with a close sell-by date. They also don't have a daily reminder feature or any budget-setting function.
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Snapshots of Misfits Market tell us that you can build your grocery needs for the week but it does help with budget setting. However, it does offer the flexibility to customise weekly orders and sets a price range
for your groceries.​​
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​The other option is Thrive Market which calculates a monthly subscription based on the frequency of grocery shopping, food preferences and dietary interests. There is no visibility on what I am signing up for, which is why Thrive Market falls short despite its promise to save money on an annual/monthly basis.
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Thrive Market's customer journey gathers information on your grocery needs, comes up with a subscription price and guarantees price matching. However, there is very little visibility on what groceries are up for grabs. It also does not have a daily reminder regarding food that's available.
Based on this research,
there is an opportunity for
Too Good To Go to not only help reduce food waste but also help people save on expenses through their
Daily Reminder feature.​​
But how well does the Daily Reminder feature work?​
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Despite keeping a reminder to save food on a few days, the Too Good To Go reminder would only show up after 3 PM by which time the selection of produce and/or food would drastically reduce. I was also under the impression that I would be trying to save food across the three categories, but the notification clarified that the food I would be trying to save would only come from the Surprise Bag category.​ Over time, I got notifications between 9 to 9.30 AM, asking me to consider saving food from various restaurants and bakeries but not necessarily grocery stores which could potentially help with reaching nutritional requirements and needs.
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Screenshots of the notifications for Daily Reminder — the first Thursday had a notification come in at 3.45 PM, the second at 9.20 AM, and the third at 9.32 AM. The second and the third notification carried the ratings of the establishments which were largely cafes and/or bakeries.
How can we make the Daily Reminder feature
work better?
There are two approaches that Too Good To Go can consider to improve their Daily Reminder To Save feature and act as a budgeting tool:
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By allowing people to customise the Daily Reminder timing, the food preferences (supermarkets over eateries like cafes or restaurants) and setting a budget every week; AND
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Having a sort and filter feature for all the establishments based on price, ratings, distance and their offerings (meals, groceries and baked goods).
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An attempt at what this might look like can be seen through the prototype below:​​