The Exchanges

Q What happens? Do you reach out to them and say, hey, uh, maybe we should meet up and, and talk about what we're doing?

A Yeah, exactly. You know, I actually went to a conference in Oslo that was called collaboration is the new competition. And saying that if you really care about something, if you really want to do a project that you care about, then instead of doing it against each other, you better do it together. And, and I guess that that was enough to convince me that, um, that I could actually just do it with those people. And therefore I just, uh, you know, found their numbers online, um, and gave them a call. And, and literally it was, it was pretty funny because at that time they were, so they had just, um, started to build a website, uh, in Copenhagen to work on that, uh, in Denmark, but they had gotten some PR in Norway, and therefore one of their, uh, friends who was Norwegian was taking the night bus from Copenhagen to Norway to come and start to, to see if it could work in Norway.

AI assessment note: “found their numbers online, um, and gave them a call.”

Q And I'm curious, Lucy, when you would go to, like, Eric Kaiser, for example, was it, was it like an easy pitch? I mean, because it, it seems like it, You know, you would go in, you would explain the concept, and, and they were like, yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm good to go. Or, or were any of them skeptical? Were any of them like, well, what's enough for you?

A No, no, of course, a lot of skepticism at the beginning. I mean, first, I think the main worry was like, it's going to take too much time. I can't be bothered. And anyway, it's not going to work. So that's why I had to convince them that it would be as simple as throwing food away. And therefore, um, you know, it was, that's why we use the idea of the surprise bag is that you don't have to like do an inventory of everything you have left. Just say I have three bags tonight and then just, uh, Whatever you have left at the end of the day, you just put it in there. So I think that was a huge argument. And then, um, a second big thing was they were worried to feel like they were discounting their products, especially the very high brand, you know, they, they, they would have never done discounting.

AI assessment note: “No, no, of course, a lot of skepticism at the beginning.”

Q Presumably, the idea is to, is for this to be available everywhere around the world and, and for any kind of food product That could be wasted to be sold on this platform. Is that, is that the mission?

A Yes, for sure. Um, we want to build a global movement for fighting food waste. We want any one of us to be able to do our little bits in the fight against food waste. And, you know, today we save three meals every second. Uh, imagine how huge that is, and I still remember myself counting the daily meals one by one with my finger on the screen. Today I'm happy we have a great data team, uh, to do that. But, uh, but yeah, we, we want to save every meal on the planet, uh, from every store and from every locations. The U.S. is definitely a huge challenge for us because it's a huge country. So we've launched in Canada as well. This market is, is growing incredibly, incredibly well as well. And, you know, later it should be South America, it should be Australia, it should be Asia, Africa. I mean, all the continents, uh, will, will eventually, um, join, join the, uh, the fight against food waste. And then, you know, it's, it's really about the whole food chain as well. We just acquired a company called Coda Bene that helps grocery stores to, to really do their shelf rotation in a, in a smarter way. And Coda Bene really tells them if, if they should discount the product in the store, if they should give it to a charity, or if they should save it on too good to go. And that's the idea is how can we really become the food waste partners Of all the food partners, ah, in the world. And the…

AI assessment note: “Yes, for sure. Um, we want to build a global movement for fighting food waste.”

Q And by the way, they were doing something Slightly different from what I understand. They were, they were working with like buffet restaurants, right? To sell excess food from a buffet at the end of the day.

A Yeah, exactly. So I think we've all seen those buffet of like all you can eat, uh, which at the end of the day, obviously there is still some food left. And so they had thought about the app that would enable you to, you come and you get a, you get, you get a box, a takeaway box that you can fill with whatever is left on the buffet. So that was their idea when, of course, for me as a French person, I immediately saw about the bakery. And therefore, you know, it was a similar concept of you get a bag or a box filled with food that is leftover, um, but it was just different type of stores.

AI assessment note: “Yeah, exactly. So I think we've all seen those buffet”

Q How I Built This Lab. My guest today is Lucy Bash, the entrepreneur who started a company that connects cafes and restaurants to customers willing to buy leftover food at a reduced price. So let's talk about the, the sort of the logistics of putting this together. I mean, were the others in, in Copenhagen, were they able to build an app or, or, or you able to do it?

A So I, I tried very hard, but I wasn't, uh, it was not really productive when I was, um, What I was coding. And no, actually, yeah, one of the, one of the Danish guys were a developer. So he was the one, you know, really just coding the app and fully focused on that. But originally we just had a website and we started with WordPress, like many companies do, I guess. And then slowly we had an MVP, a minimum viable product, which just enabled us to, to show the app and the concept to the stores we were pitching. And then slowly but surely, we started to have an app that would work better, and that was becoming as well more and more automated. But you know, for, I guess, the first two years, the app was always breaking down. Our payments module would never work, and literally every time we had big media, that we were on TV, that suddenly a lot of people would download the app, everything would crash. The servers, the app. And so, I think the first two years, like our average on the App Store was two stores. Uh, everyone said, like, I tried to download it. It doesn't work. I have no stores around me. This is crap. And like, we literally, we, we kept on going, but, um, but it was tough, right? Because when your product doesn't work perfectly, it's, uh, it's hard to, to sell it to everyone.

AI assessment note: “one of the Danish guys were a developer. So he was the one”

Q You guys raised, I think, more than thirty million dollars in, um, Venture capital in 2020. And from what I've read, you were reluctant to do that for a while. So what, what changed your minds?

A Yeah, I mean, you know, for us, it was so important to be fully mission-focused and, and to, to stay true to our DNA that we thought VCs and, and the financial world will maybe force us to change that, or, I don't know, we were not really trusting that it, it would be possible to have a true financial partner that would respect our vision and our DNA. Um, and then, uh, we, we found some that actually shared our values. The first VC we raised from is called Bliss. It's a B Corp venture capital, um, based between, between France and the US. And, you know, I don't know if you're familiar with the B Corp certification, but it's, it's really about building businesses that are good for society. And the fact that we had a VC that took that certification, uh, put us in, in good trust already. But also when, uh, When we started to engage with them, we realized that the questions they were asking were different from other VCs, and they were not only interested in our financial KPIs, but also really in the way we were doing business. And for us, it's definitely about doing both, right? It's not only about the way we do business, it's really about the KPIs we hit and our financial targets, but it's also really about The way we deal with our consumers, the way we deal with our partners, the way we work with our employees, and how good we are with diversity, equity, and inclusion, those are …

AI assessment note: “we found some that actually shared our values. The first VC we raised from is called Bliss”

Q to How I Built This Lab. Welcome back to How I Built This Lab. I'm Guy Raz, and I'm talking with Lucy Bash, who saw that food waste is a huge global problem and turned fighting it into a for-profit company. It sounds like as you, you know, went from country to country, it became easier, or did it still, was it still a hurdle to convincing businesses to join?

A No, I think, you know, we really built our credibility years after years, and people started to hear about us, people started to believe that it works, and that as a store owner, you don't have to throw food away at the end of the day anymore. And our, our U.S. launch was very rapid as well, even so we launched just after COVID. It was a pretty crazy bet to, to still go to the U.S. in, in August, and decided that it was time for, to go to be live there. Um, but we did, and a lot of stores, um, were really happy to see us coming. Some of them had heard about us from Europe, and today, you know, just a couple of years later, we, we are in, uh, 12,000 stores in the U.S. 12,000 stores. Yeah, so we've already saved, uh, more than four million meals in the U.S., but there is so much more we could save.

AI assessment note: “we really built our credibility years after years, and people started to hear about us”

Q And what do you say to them when you, when you met them? Like, hey, I, I have this idea. Can I join you? Can we join together? What, what was your pitch?

A Yeah, exactly. I mean, I didn't really have a pitch. I called and I said, Hey, I'm working on the same ID. Where are you? How do you work with it? Uh, how is it working in Copenhagen? And then like really quickly, they asked me like, uh, where are you based? I said, I'm in Oslo. And therefore they were pretty excited because as I said, just the day after one of them was coming to Oslo. So they were like, you know what, just, uh, grab a beer, meet and, uh, and then we'll see how we can make it work. And, and literally, I guess a couple of days later, uh, I was in stores, pitching half in Norwegian, half in English, uh, to try and convince stores to, to join our, to join our concept that, you know, at that time we had nothing. I mean, we didn't have a flyer. We didn't have an app. We didn't have anything that was actually working. Um, but we were passionate and, and I guess that helped us convince many people.

AI assessment note: “I mean, I didn't really have a pitch. I called and I said”

Q You know, obviously what you, what you guys were building was a business, a social enterprise, right, with a mission, but it's still a business that had to be sustainable, that had to make money. And so the question is, given your background and your interest in mission-oriented work, why didn't you guys just do it as a non-profit?

A Well, for me, it's, it's that whole thing that businesses need to be, so with, with a purpose and a mission for the world, and we truly believe that, you know, when you build, it shouldn't be that either you build a charity to help the world, or you build a business to make money. The idea is really to show that social businesses, social impact businesses can, can do both and should do both, because if you, If you want to have an impact, you actually need to have a strong business model that can maximize that impact. And, you know, really quickly into Good To Go, we were able to launch many countries. We were able to raise some funds and, and therefore launch always more countries. And, and in seven years, we, we managed to, to launch the concept in 17 countries.

AI assessment note: “if you want to have an impact, you actually need to have a strong business model”

Q And who, who, what was the first cafe or shop that you signed up in Oslo? Well, what kind of store was it?

A Well, it was actually a bakery store. So it was a guy that owned, uh, four bakeries actually. And, um, yeah, he had been throwing away for, for years really. So the first thing he told me was, you know, it's part of my job, throw away. I have to accept it. I've tried to contact charities for a very long time, but they would never come for that little food. Um, they also can't come in the city center, um, at a peak of traffic. So I just accepted that there is no other solution for me. And it was really about, you know, changing his mindset around the fact that, yes, there is a solution, and we can make it work for you, and we can make it easy.

AI assessment note: “Well, it was actually a bakery store.”

Q What did you start to think about? I mean, what you say was a disconnect, and so where, what did you start to think about in terms of what you thought you wanted to do?

A Um, I, I think at that time, you know, I had always been sensitive to food waste, but really in the factory, I realized how huge the issue was. You know, we all, we all see food waste in our daily lives, um, both in, like, when you go to a restaurant and you see, Uh, people leaving stuff in their, in their plates, or you go to the supermarkets and you see bins filled with food. Um, but that time I realized that at the industrial level, it was even bigger. And then I started to look into numbers and start to, uh, get interested into food waste. And then I realized that today we throw away 40% of the food we produce on the planet.

AI assessment note: “I started to look into numbers and start to, uh, get interested into food waste.”

Q And what are they, what are they putting in the surprise bags, for example?

A Well, many things that, that come to expiry dates. I mean, um, fruit, vegetable, but also, uh, dairy products, also, uh, meat and fish, uh, breads as well. Anything really that they have in the store. Um, we actually did a huge work on expiry dates because we realized that people didn't necessarily make the difference between a sell by and a use by. And the problem with that is even if you can still eat the product after the sell by date, um, People don't really think about it, and therefore, uh, products are, are being, um, removed from the shelves, even so they are still good to be eaten, and they are still allowed to be sold. Um, but therefore, we did a whole work to, to sensibilize people, to understand that there are two different dates, uh, but also that the product is still good to be eaten, and therefore, every time that, um, the, the staff in, in the supermarkets are removing products from the shelves, instead of Putting it in the bin, they actually put it in a, in a too good to go bag, and, and people can come to the supermarket and collect it as well. For supermarkets, it's great because it's, it's a good way of cross-selling, because you know, if you're going to pick up your surprise bag, you better do your, your grocery shopping as well.

AI assessment note: “fruit, vegetable, but also, uh, dairy products, also, uh, meat and fish”