If you’ve ever wondered what happens to leftover restaurant food at the end of the night, it typically gets tossed or in some cases donated, but Goodie Bag Food Co. has a unique solution to change where this unsold food is going. 

Launched in early January of this year, Goodie Bag Food Co. has one main mission, to combat food insecurity and waste, and tie that into an accessible online service to connect consumers with lower-priced takeout available from select restaurants in their area. Founders and friends Ethan Mills, Eddy Connors, and Luke Siegert started working on the company as a result of reconnecting at the Silicon Flatirons Startup Summer Program in the summer of 2022.

“It’s a 10-week program, covering entrepreneurship and throughout that your idea, a business idea, which then all culminates in a pitch event in which Goodie Bag was our business idea. We took home first place from that program, took our winnings and we started to take Goodie Bag to market,” said Mills. 

“We’ve been having a great experience and goodie bags have been selling out every day,” he added.

A selection of different restaurants will alert the customer when a small or large “goodie bag” is available on their website, where you can then select to purchase and pick up, prices ranging from $3 to $6,  depending on the size of your mystery bag. With only pickup being available there are no extra delivery charges or tips necessary, the price you see online is the exact price you’ll pay.

The program is currently in the form of a website, although an app platform is in the works which will add more selections and filters for people with food restrictions or allergies so the goodie bags can be accessible and exciting for everyone to enjoy. Currently, those features aren’t yet available on the website.

“In a goodie bag for example from Barchetta, our first partner, a small goodie bag for just $3 you could get a few slices of pizza, and then for $6, a half pizza and also potentially other things as well. An important thing to mention is it remains a mystery what customers get and it depends at the end of the day on what surplus stock is available from each restaurant,” Mills said.

Being college students themselves, Connors and Seigert have recently graduated from CU Boulder while Mills is in his last year of school at Oxford Brookes University, they understand that sometimes getting local, good food can be expensive, which branches the company’s connection between local businesses and combating food waste. 

“We can really relate to the need for more affordable options on food, especially when you’re trying to eat local locally sourced food and not have to just eat fast food or ramen if you only have a couple of bucks. So it’s a mission that we’re really excited about and we can relate to and we’re excited to bring it to our home community of Boulder,” Connors said.

On the restaurant side, the company provides a way for restaurants to make back a little bit of profit they would have lost by just tossing the extra food out at the end of the day.

The company is aiming to not only make a difference in the community by connecting cheaper prices with food, and fighting against food insecurity and waste but ordering from them will make your stomach and wallet both happy.