Going green this Black Friday: How a simple app is helping to cut food waste for businesses in Bassetlaw and Rother Valley

This includes such as purchasing sustainable brands or doing things which will off-set the reactive impact Black Friday has, by helping us to make more environmentally informed decisions about our purchases.

The Green Friday movement is also about getting back to basics, enjoying nature, spending time with friends and family, sharing, giving and helping worthwhile causes.

It is an opportunity to reconnect with all that makes us feel uplifted.

One way in which we can contribute to sustainability and “go green” is to cut down on food waste.

Every day tons of fresh food is wasted and thrown away from shops, cafes and restaurants.

The ‘Too Good to Go’ app, which can downloaded to a mobile phone, lets people buy and collect the food for a low price, so the perfectly good produce gets eaten instead of wasted.

The ‘magic bag’ of surplus food from a supermarket, bakery, or meal from one of the participating restaurants or cafes is always a surprise. Purchasers do not know what they will be getting until they collect it.

Prices start from around £2. All people need to do it put in their postcode and see what is available locally, choose their bag or meal, pay and collect at the given time.

Some businesses in Bassetlaw and Rother Valley have already joined this scheme, as it is an effective way of tackling food waste, which can be costly to business owners.

One of the local restaurants taking part is the Monks Bridge Farm in Dinnington.

General manager Robert Lindsley said: “We have been doing this for over one-and-a-half-years now, and sell around 40 to 50 meals a week through the Too Good to Go app.

"It’s great that the surplus food doesn’t go to waste.”

Other local participating businesses are One Stop Store, Morrisons, Greggs, Asda Worksop, and Starbucks.

Food waste puts the planet under unnecessary strain, and scientists have discovered that waste food releases harmful greenhouse gasses when it is not disposed of in the correct way. T

To date, Too Good to Go has saved 102.7 million meals from being thrown away globally.