Too Good To Go: Combating Food Waste with Surprise Clearance

References

• Akkaş A, Gaur V (2022) OM forum—Reducing food waste: An operations management research agenda. Manufacturing Service Oper. Management 24(3):1261–1275.Link, Google Scholar
• Akkaş A, Honhon D (2022) Shipment policies for products with fixed shelf lives: Impact on profits and waste. Manufacturing Service Oper. Management 24(3):1611–1629.Link, Google Scholar
• Akkaş A, Honhon D (2023) Determining maximum shipping age requirements for shelf life and food waste management. Production Oper. Management 32(7):2173–2188.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Belavina E (2021) Grocery store density and food waste. Manufacturing Service Oper. Management 23(1):1–18.Link, Google Scholar
• Belavina E, Girotra K, Kabra A (2017) Online grocery retail: Revenue models and environmental impact. Management Sci. 63(6):1781–1799.Link, Google Scholar
• Cachon GP, Feldman P (2015) Price commitments with strategic consumers: Why it can be optimal to discount more frequently … than optimal. Manufacturing Service Oper. Management 17(3):399–410.Link, Google Scholar
• Cachon GP, Kök AG (2007) Implementation of the newsvendor model with clearance pricing: How to (and how not to) estimate a salvage value. Manufacturing Service Oper. Management 9(3):276–290.Link, Google Scholar
• Chen N, Elmachtoub AN, Hamilton ML, Lei X (2021) Loot box pricing and design. Management Sci. 67(8):4809–4825.Link, Google Scholar
• Crama P, Zhou YH, Wang M (2023) Impact of cosmetic standards on food loss. Working paper. Singapore Management University, Singapore.Google Scholar
• Dana JD, Petruzzi NC (2001) Note: The newsvendor model with endogenous demand. Management Sci. 47(11):1488–1497.Link, Google Scholar
• Fay S, Xie J (2008) Probabilistic goods: A creative way of selling products and services. Marketing Sci. 27(4):674–690.Link, Google Scholar
• Fay S, Xie J (2015) Timing of product allocation: Using probabilistic selling to enhance inventory management. Management Sci. 61(2):474–484.Link, Google Scholar
• Glanz R (2008) Causes of Food Waste Generation in Households (Cranfield University, Cranfield, UK).Google Scholar
• Gunders D, Bloom J (2017) Wasted: How America is losing up to 40 percent of its food from farm to fork to landfill. Report, Natural Resources Defense Council, New York.Google Scholar
• Han Z, Hu B, Dawande M (2023) Seeing beauty in ugly produce: A food waste perspective. Working paper, University of Texas at Dallas, Richardson, TX.Google Scholar
• Hu P, Shum S, Yu M (2016) Joint inventory and markdown management for perishable goods with strategic consumer behavior. Oper. Res. 64(1):118–134.Link, Google Scholar
• Jerath K, Netessine S, Veeraraghavan SK (2010) Revenue management with strategic customers: Last-minute selling and opaque selling. Management Sci. 56(3):430–448.Link, Google Scholar
• Jiao Y, Tang CS, Wang J (2021) Selling virtual items in free-to-play games: Transparent selling vs. opaque selling. Service Sci. 13(2):53–76.Link, Google Scholar
• Kazaz B, Xu F, Yu H (2025) Retailing strategies of imperfect produce and the battle against food waste. Manufacturing Service Oper. Management 27(4):1146–1163.Google Scholar
• Keskin NB, Li C, Song J-S (2024) The blockchain newsvendor: Value of freshness transparency and smart contracts. Management Sci., ePub ahead of print November 14, https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2021.02949.Link, Google Scholar
• Lamb C (2018) Karma turns surplus food from restaurants and grocery stores into cheap meals. The Spoon (June 18), https://thespoon.tech/karma-turns-surplus-food-from-restaurants-and-grocery-stores-into-cheap-meals/.Google Scholar
• Lee D, Tongarlak MH (2017) Converting retail food waste into by-product. Eur. J. Oper. Res. 257(3):944–956.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Li C, Zhang F (2013) Advance demand information, price discrimination, and preorder strategies. Manufacturing Service Oper. Management 15(1):57–71.Link, Google Scholar
• Li Q, Tang CS, Xu H (2020) Mitigating the double-blind effect in opaque selling: Inventory and information. Production Oper. Management 29(1):35–54.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Lu T (2023) Shipment monitoring, allocation and the impact on food waste. Working paper, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT.Google Scholar
• McLean T (2021) Food waste app Too Good To Go saves leftovers from San Francisco restaurants. SFGATE (July 9), https://www.sfgate.com/food/article/Food-waste-app-TooGoodToGo-saves-leftovers-sf-16302119.php.Google Scholar
• Miao J, Jain S (2024) Designing loot boxes: Implications for profits and welfare. Marketing Sci. 43(6):1242–1259.Link, Google Scholar
• National Research Council Canada (2022) A rapid rise up the food chain: How Flashfood is hitting major milestones while lowering the cost of food for consumers. (July 11), https://nrc.canada.ca/en/stories/rapid-rise-food-chain-how-flashfood-hitting-major-milestones-while-lowering-cost-food-consumers.Google Scholar
• New York Times (2022) Lots of food gets tossed. These apps let you buy it, cheap. (September 20), https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/20/climate/food-waste-app.html.Google Scholar
• Poore J, Nemecek T (2018) Reducing food’s environmental impacts through producers and consumers. Science 360(6392):987–992.Crossref, Google Scholar
• ReFED (2016) A roadmap to reduce U.S. food waste by 20 percent. Accessed July 11, 2025, https://refed.org/downloads/ReFED_Report_2016.pdf.Google Scholar
• Ren H, Huang T (2022) Opaque selling and inventory management in vertically differentiated markets. Manufacturing Service Oper. Management 24(5):2543–2557.Link, Google Scholar
• Ritchie H (2020) Food waste is responsible for 6% of global greenhouse gas emissions. Our World in Data (March 18), https://ourworldindata.org/food-waste-emissions.Google Scholar
• RTS (2025) Food waste in America in 2025: Statistics + facts. Accessed July 11, 2025, https://www.rts.com/resources/guides/food-waste-america/.Google Scholar
• Sanders R (2024) Dynamic pricing and organic waste bans: A study of grocery retailers’ incentives to reduce food waste. Marketing Sci. 43(2):289–316.Link, Google Scholar
• Su X, Zhang F (2008) Strategic customer behavior, commitment, and supply chain performance. Management Sci. 54(10):1759–1773.Link, Google Scholar
• Washington Post (2022) The new coupon-cutting: Apps that sell discounted food headed for the trash. (September 17), https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/09/17/apps-flashfood-inflation-food-waste/.Google Scholar
• WRAP (2007) Understanding food waste. Report, WRAP, Banbury, UK.Google Scholar
• Wu Q, Honhon D (2023) Don’t waste that free lettuce! Impact of BOGOF promotions on retail profit and food waste. Production Oper. Management 32(2):501–523.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Yin R, Aviv Y, Pazgal A, Tang CS (2009) Optimal markdown pricing: Implications of inventory display formats in the presence of strategic customers. Management Sci. 55(8):1391–1408.Link, Google Scholar
• Yu M, Palumbo L, Secondi L (2022) Saving food from waste or advance selling? An empirical analysis of Too Good to Go offering in Rome. Working paper, University of Tuscia, Viterbo, Italy.Google Scholar