As food waste is responsible for 10% of greenhouse gases on a global scale , reducing it would have become the most effective way to combat climate change. It is in this sense that entrepreneur Lucie Basch continues the growth of her scale-up Too Good To Go . Founded five years ago, the mobile app now saves two meals per second.
Where is Too Good To Go in its “anti-waste” fight?
Lucie Basch: Since the start of the adventure in France, we have convinced more than 10 million users to join the fight against food waste. We have saved nearly 100 million meals worldwide, including 30 million in France with the help of 25,000 businesses.
In terms of indirect impact, the idea is also to place food waste at the top of the agenda; changing mindsets within pillars like education, politics, business and consumers. During municipal elections, we ensure that as many politicians as possible integrate our vision into their program.
We are also launching a major program among primary school children to raise their awareness of the fight against food waste and to convince their parents in turn. I think it is essential to raise children’s awareness of man’s impact on climate change.
Finally, we work with companies on the subject of consumption dates to train reflexes. 20% of food waste in Europe is due to confusion between the words “best before” and “consume by”. We have approached all stakeholders in the food industry such as distributors and consumers to better understand this statement.
When you were still in engineering school, did you feel a lack of training in entrepreneurship?
LB: I think I have always had this entrepreneurial streak. A good entrepreneur must be both a leader – someone who generates a movement – and a person capable of creating projects from scratch. These two personality traits have always been a part of me.
Then, the engineering profession taught me to reason, think, organize, think quickly… When I enrolled in the entrepreneurial chair at Essec, I already had two master’s degrees in logistics and engineering. And the teachers were all telling me to go for it.
The advice I can give is: if you have an idea, go for it! Nelson Mandela said: “I never lose. Either I win or I learn. «. That’s really the quality of an entrepreneur: no matter the experiences, you always have to see learning.
So entrepreneurship is essentially about being able to overcome the fear of failure?
LB: Yes exactly. And if Too Good To Go works well today, it’s also because I’ve never really been afraid of failure. I view it as an exciting learning opportunity. I love seeing that things go quickly, work, and the more complicated times are just as interesting.
In 2019, you joined forces with shopping center giant Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield… What happened to this project?
LB: The partnership is going very well and we are fortunate to have established links with large groups which open the doors to us internationally. Today, we are present in 17 countries and our partners encourage us in this momentum.
There are many synergies to be built between large groups and start-ups: they need us to become more agile and adapt to the rapid evolution of society; and we need them to “ scale ” our international activity to better respond to the urgency of the issues we wish to address.
Without scaling up, the impact in favor of the social and solidarity economy (ESS) seems limited?
LB: I think it takes everything to make a world. There are many small-scale initiatives in the field of ESS that have a profound impact on mentalities. For our part, we could not save two meals per second without scalability. It’s important to have both.
What about local ecosystems?
More than 50% of our application’s professional partners are independent and local traders. It’s very important for us, for example, to work with the local grocery store or bakery. On the issue of food insecurity, we also collaborate with a myriad of associations to help them make a difference. Food is inherently a local subject. We are obliged to get closer to the territory in which we operate.
How to stay consistent as activity spreads internationally?
LB: It’s an ongoing conversation for us: how can we reconcile the creation of an international movement to fight against food waste with responding to local issues? In the United States alone, for example, these issues are not the same in New York or Los Angeles.
There is no right answer. It is rather an approach which consists of asking ourselves every day: how can we challenge ourselves to stay in the right balance, between a uniform movement and local responses?
Are there normative barriers to your development?
LB: There are no major barriers, but every day we continue to effectively combat anything that would hinder our fight against food waste . Many old rules and standards have become obsolete. It is our responsibility to push for them to be updated.
This is where impact entrepreneurship becomes interesting: by pushing the political agenda in favor of our values, we also indirectly contribute to the prosperity of our society.
How do you ensure your permanence on a political agenda that evolves every five years?
LB: That’s the whole point of having a presence at local, national, European and international level. Today we have more weight to talk about these issues. This was also the case during the International Day of Awareness of Food Loss and Waste on September 29 by the United Nations (UN) .
It seems more important today to know what we eat, to know the origin of food and its impact on our body. To put an end to this disconnect between the production and final consumption of food, we need more transparency
Have you always had this support?
LB: Not at all, and we didn’t intend to get there one day. At the beginning the objective was simply to democratize the fight against waste and ensure that everyone could take part. What has been great is the catalytic power of influence enabled by new technologies, which allows us to connect with millions of users around the world.
At the beginning, agri-food companies did not want to welcome us. Today they are coming back to us because “anti-waste” has naturally become a public demand. We have become a key voice in this movement.
Where do you stand compared to your competitors – like Phenix?
LB: Our only real competitor is the trash. What matters is making sure the food is eaten rather than thrown away. I often repeat this phrase “Collaboration is the new competition” which consists of thinking that the more of us there are to provide solutions, the stronger we are in the face of a problem. The more actors there are mobilized against waste, the more these issues will become anchored in our society. Danone versus Nestlé is the old world and there is a new form of competition to reinvent.
Are you inspired by other innovations in the food sector?
There is much to be done on the link between diet and health. It seems more important today to know what we eat, to know the origin of food and its impact on our body. To put an end to this disconnect between the production and final consumption of food, we need more transparency.
New technologies can contribute to this – like blockchain for example – but simpler use cases also need to be explored: better product labeling, information relating to the carbon cost of a food, or even simply stopping selling products. strawberries in winter. Food manufacturers must offer this transparency so that consumers make an informed choice.
The majority of them understood the importance of this issue. And as part of our Consumption Dates Pact , we played the role of facilitator and coordinator in an ecosystem where competitors could not talk to each other. Having a neutral actor in the middle of the debate, with concrete solutions, made it possible to change things.
