Sometimes you'll see offers in ResQ with longer expiration date. Similarly, in some restaurants, the dish is being prepared when you arrive to pick it up. Can those be surplus products, or is the company just using ResQ Club as a marketing tool?
In most cases, there is a perfectly logical explanation for such situations.
In many à la carte restaurants, there are no leftover portions, but some ingredients are in a danger to end up being wasted. For example, if a restaurant has a leftover salmon fillet, they might offer a salmon salad made from it at ResQ. In such situation, the restaurant will publish a dish made from these ingredients to ResQ, but will start preparing it once you arrive to pick it up. Even if you have to wait a while, the food is at its best when freshly prepared!
What about the products in shops and cafés whose best before date is far in the future?
Many shops are removing products from their shelves because the product is not selling in sufficient volumes and they want to free up shelf space for other products. In these cases, ResQ might offer products with a lot of best before date left!
Some restaurants sell food all day long, almost from dawn!
This is quite common practise in buffet restaurants. They use ResQ especially during off-peak hours (i.e. mornings and afternoons), to keep the buffet rotation fast enough to avoid throwing food away, and to maintain the buffet fresh. For this reason, some buffet dishes are offered first thing in the morning.
A third special case is where there is a café as an additional service - for example, in bookshops. These cafés may sell their products daily in ResQ, giving the impression that ResQ is being used as a marketing platform rather than a surplus prevention tool.
In most cases, the number of customers in such locations is so low that there would be significant amounts of surplus. Therefore, such cafés also offer products on the service that may not be due to expire in the near future.
We are doing our best to ensure that the offers posted on ResQ are truly made because of surplus prevention. And of course we want to support our environmentally conscious partners by offering them all the help they need to bring their business to the attention of environmentally conscious customers!
Some restaurants sell dozens of portions of food a day! Is it possible to have that much surplus?
Unfortunately, in many buffet restaurants, tens of portions in a day can be wasted if the buffet is served all day. Buffet food, especially sushi, needs to be kept as fresh as possible and therefore wastage occurs throughout the day. The more different dishes served at the buffet, the more surplus is generated.
However, if you suspect that a seller is misusing ResQ to sell normal food, for example because of the high prices, you should always contact our customer service!