Combating food waste and happy dogs

It is a bit of an environmental and eco blog post today, but if you read until the end you will find out how this relates to happy, smiling dogs.

The other day I was listening to a podcast in the van where they were discussing the rise in popularity of a certain food waste app.

Restaurants, hotels and food shops sign up with the app and offer food which is close to expiry for a small nominal fee in a surprise bag. You are given a certain time period with which you must pick up your surprise bag and you have no idea what it will contain.

To me this seemed like an ingenious and fun way to solve the growing food waste crisis.

Alas the app in question was not available in the Norway and therefore I went searching for its equivalent. On a certain forum I found out that in Norway lots of people use an app called “too good to go”.

I downloaded it, had a good look at the selection on offer and found that my local Joker shop had a surprise bag ready for collection later that very day. “Why not?” I thought and paid the reasonable 39 nok and waited in anticipation.

I arrived and showed my collection code to the store attendant. He went out back and returned with a rather large paper bag filled with goods. 2 loaves of bread, a selection of pastries which had been on sale the day before (but were still very nice), 1 litre of orange juice that would be going off that day and two packs of sausages.

Now for the fun part. We don’t really eat sausages, but I know a lot of dogs who do. So I got to work in frying up 10 large sausages and then cutting them up into snack sized pieces.

The result in my initial efforts to combat food waste (as the shop in question would have had to legally throw out this produce by midnight) has lead to a happy partner (croissant and countless slices of toast), a happy son (a pastry, watered down orange juice and some new types of bread in his lunchbox), a happy daughter (tiny bit of a pastry and some bread slices), 20 happy dogs (the sausages) and a very happy Matt (the rest of the pastries and bread 🥪 ).

Curious? Why not give it a go and take a look at what is available near you? You may just find some extra treats for your doggies too.

Doggies: Banipal, Poppy, Punky, Tesla and Lucy