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Surplus food marketplace Too Good to Go this week announced its largest US grocery partnership to date, rolling out at 450 Whole Foods Markets nationwide—and the Surprise Bags are already going viral.
The collaboration began earlier this year with a pilot in seven stores in Austin, Texas, and added 200 more locations in early June. The largest batch of stores came online this week, per Too Good to Go. Stores in New York and Massachusetts are set to debut later this year.
Consumers can use the Too Good to Go app to buy bags of surplus food items, choosing between prepared food bags containing ready-to-eat meals and soups, offered at $9.99 for a $30 value, or bakery bags with pastries like breads, muffins, and cookies at $6.99 for a $21 value.
Caitlin Leibert, Whole Foods’ VP of sustainability, said the move is part of the retailer’s effort to “invest in new and innovative ways to keep unsold food out of our landfills and empower our customers to make environmentally conscious choices.”
Too Good to Go, which debuted in the US in 2020, has gained popularity—and helped build online communities—from Surprise Bag hauls shared to social media. The nationwide Whole Foods rollout has made a splash on TikTok, as users from San Francisco to Dallas have taken to the platform to unveil the contents of their bags on camera.
One user posted a $6.99 bakery haul garnering 943k views, showing a package of oatmeal raisin cookies, four-packs of lemon cheese danishes and zucchini muffins, and brown butter chocolate chip cookies. One commenter said the haul inspired her to redownload the app. A $9.99 prepared food bag haul revealed boneless buffalo chicken bites, chicken strips, shrimp scampi, and two broccoli and cheddar cheese quiches, amassing 395k views. But of course, not all hauls are created equal: One TikTok that racked up 359k views showed a woman and her mom’s surprise as they unpacked three consecutive containers of egg salad…followed by two of chicken salad.