Yeo Valley has partnered with Too Good To Go to ensure that any unpredictable, damaged or short-life surplus dairy products reach people rather than being sent to anaerobic digestion or for animal feed. Through the creation of a flexible bespoke solution, Too Good To Go ensured brand protection and facilitated on-site customer collections, preventing delicious surplus from going to waste. Read the case study below to find out how.
Surplus dairy products
As an ethical manufacturer, Yeo Valley wants to make sure that any surplus generated reaches people instead of being sent to anaerobic digestion or animal feed. However, surplus can be unpredictable as situations can arise where product life is too short, or cases become damaged or are partially filled.
This presents a challenge, as part-filled cases can’t be transported on pallets and products with a limited shelf life would be impractical to transport elsewhere. Yeo Valley therefore needed to find a market for these products that are not able to be sold for general retail. The business wanted to find a solution which would ensure brand protection whilst facilitating consumer collection and invoicing on-site.
Creating a bespoke solution
Too Good To Go connects customers directly to restaurants, supermarkets and manufacturing sites where they can purchase unsold food surplus at discounted prices. They were able to create a bespoke solution for Yeo Valley that fits in with their current processes and procedures on site, ensuring minimal disruption. This involved the creation of a “Mystery Bag” on the Too Good To Go app into which Yeo Valley could add a mixture of any surplus products, without the need to specify exact products to the consumer.
This gave Yeo Valley the flexibility it needed to be agile and adapt quickly to breakages, incomplete cases or products that became too short-dated to send off-site. They simply add stock whenever they happen to have it, on no fixed schedule.
There is also flexibility in terms of collection; Yeo Valley can manage the days it adds collections, as well as specific collection time windows. Too Good To Go adds specific instructions on customer orders to direct them to the site and collection location.
Products enjoyed by the local community
The partnership launched in mid-October 2021 and, as of May 2022, Too Good To Go has sold more than 575 Yeo Valley Mystery bags, saving roughly 1.5 tonnes of CO2e from products that would have otherwise gone to waste.
"We use Too Good To Go predominantly to make the most of cases of products that have been partially damaged. Perfectly good product that may have some packaging imperfections but plenty of life can then make it into our local communities to be enjoyed with fantastic feedback. Our Magic bags fly off the shelf. The Too Good To Go team has been a fantastic support through this, with us being very proud to support their mission of fighting food waste." - Mark Pope, Customer Fulfilment Manager, Yeo Valley
Find out more about the partnership
Mark Alderson (Key Accounts UK Wholesale & Manufacturing, Too Good To Go) [email protected]
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