The archive · Commerce & Marketplaces · Product decision · 2021–2026
Food To Save bets Brazil buys mystery surplus-food bags; app hits top downloads
After losing its first app to a R$100k scam, Food To Save grew into Brazil's food-waste marketplace, one of the country's most downloaded apps.
Food To Save
What the business is
Food To Save is a Brazilian foodtech marketplace whose app sells 'surprise bags' of surplus, near-expiry food from bakeries, supermarkets and restaurants to consumers at discounts of around 70%.
How it started
Founder Lucas Infante saw the problem while managing a Carrefour Express franchise in Spain: edible food was thrown away daily because it found no buyer in time. In 2021 he founded Food To Save in Brazil, and the first partner was a small bakery in Vila Mariana, São Paulo. The first app never worked — a contracted software house swindled the company out of R$100,000 before it had investors. Infante abandoned the app, built a simpler website, and kept validating the model.
What happened
Raising took nearly 11 months and roughly 103-105 investor meetings, ending in a round of about R$20 million. The company then scaled from one bakery to more than 12,000 partner establishments across over 100 cities, with the surprise-bag format designed so consumers discover the contents only on opening. Revenue reached R$160M+ in 2025, with expectations to exceed R$200M in 2026. Infante admits the fast growth cost the company in 2025 — identity drift, wrong hires, lost focus and a process reorganization.
No ending yet — it is still running.
Background
Food To Save is a Brazilian startup that sells surplus food through an app: bakeries, supermarkets and restaurants pack near-expiry or unsold products into 'surprise bags' that consumers buy at discounts of roughly 70%, discovering the contents only when they open them. Founder Lucas Infante conceived it in 2021 while managing a Carrefour Express franchise in Spain, where he watched edible food being discarded daily because it found no buyer in time.
The company's first application never launched. A software house hired to build it took the money and disappeared, costing the startup R$100,000 before it had any investors. Instead of giving up, Infante abandoned the app, built a simpler website and kept signing up real establishments, starting with a small bakery in Vila Mariana, São Paulo. Only after the model showed traction did outside money arrive: about R$20 million, after roughly 103-105 investor meetings spread over nearly 11 months.
The product insight was to protect the partner. Retailers worried that a discount app would train customers to buy cheaply and cannibalize normal sales, so Food To Save hides exactly what each bag contains. The establishment gains an incremental revenue line for food it would have discarded, the consumer gets access to products at steep discounts, and the mystery format became the hook that made the app a daily consumer habit.
By 2026 the app was one of the most downloaded in Brazil, connecting more than 12,000 establishments across over 100 cities. Revenue reached R$160M+ in 2025 and the company expected to exceed R$200M in 2026. Infante is candid that scaling cost the business part of its identity in 2025 — wrong hires, lost focus and a needed reorganization — and that he had to turn himself from founder into an operating CEO.
What has to be true
- Selling surplus as mystery bags, not as listed discounts, answered the retailer's real objection and made waste a product line rather than a write-off.
- The scam forced the cheapest possible validation path — a plain website serving one bakery — which proved demand before the founders raised or rebuilt the app.
- The 70%-discount surprise format gave consumers a reason to open the app daily, which is what carried the product into Brazil's most-downloaded lists.
- The founder treated fundraising as a numbers game after the early failure, using 103-105 meetings and thousands of rejections to build investor confidence in the validated model.
What can be applied
A failed first build can still validate the model: prove demand with a crude version and real partners before raising, and design the offer around the partner's fear, not just the consumer's discount.
Aftermath
As of July 8, 2026, Food To Save was scaling across more than 100 Brazilian cities with over 12,000 partner establishments, had booked R$160M+ revenue in 2025, and expected to pass R$200M in 2026. InfoMoney described it as among the most downloaded apps in Brazil and Brazil's largest anti-food-waste movement. The company was reorganizing processes after admitting 2025 growth had caused identity drift, wrong hires and lost focus, and Infante was recasting himself from founding partner to executive CEO to manage the next stage.
Sources
- Food To Save superou um golpe de R$100 mil e virou um dos app mais baixados no Brasil
- Food To Save transformou comida que iria ao lixo em um negócio de R$ 220 milhões
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