www.montereycountynow.com APRIL 9-15, 2026 MONTEREY COUNTY WEEKLY 21 Not long after Ad Astra opened, the bakery began selling to groceries and restaurants. Owner Ron Mendoza knows how many loaves go where each day. But with retail shops in Monterey and Carmel Valley, the model is different. The bakery does not take pre-orders on its retail side. Mendoza prefers the old-fashioned feel of shoppers checking out what’s available. “Inside the shop is a guessing game,” he says, referring to the number of loaves he and his team need to bake on a given morning. “When we first opened, we were getting rid of a lot of bread.” It’s a problem all too common. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, at least 30 percent of the food available to consumers goes to waste. The numbers within that figure are equally staggering. A 2025 report by ReFed, an online center for food waste data, found that it represents enough for 120 billion meals. And because only a fraction of that is donated or put to other uses, such as livestock feed, 85 percent of food waste ends up in landfills, where it is responsible for dumping enough methane into the atmosphere to account for 10 percent of methane emissions. But Mendoza came across a solution, at least to his excess bread problem. It came in the form of an online app. ••• “Our strongest selling point is that surplus is a massive opportunity,” says Esther Cohn, spokesperson for Flashfood, which partners with Lucky supermarket locations in Monterey County. Each day, boxes of produce, premade salads, deli sandwiches and other items nearing expiration are placed on the Flashfood app for customers to claim at discounted prices. Another app, Too Good To Go, has partnered with some 75 restaurants, bakeries and grocers in the county, including Ad Astra. The free apps function in a similar manner. Once installed, users select a location. Images on the screen then detail what is available at that particular time. On Too Good To Go it might be a surprise bag of pastries from Lafayette Bakery in Carmel for $4.99 or a 14-inch pie from Pizza My Heart in Monterey, regularly a $30 order for just $9.99. The app details a pick-up time (between 11am and 9pm for the pizza, in this case). The user can then select an item and complete the purchase. To pick up an order, customers just show the ticket on the app to a clerk and walk away with lunch, dinner or produce. The app also produces a receipt. “It’s really simple, really efficient,” Mendoza observes. On any day, one might find pizza from a local Round Table location, bowls from Poke House, a half dozen of Danny’s Donut Shop’s treats or a dish from Camalig Filipino Cuisine. Whole Foods prepares mystery bags that sell out quickly. If there is a downside, it’s that app users can only select from what is available. Bread from Ad Astra might be sourdough, an olive loaf or another style. Boxes of produce and mystery bags are assembled in advance. A produce box from Lucky on one occasion included six bell peppers, a head of cauliflower, three cucumbers, an onion and a few other items. The next time it was heavy with tomatoes, onions, potatoes and oranges. But the store uploads photos to guide your selection. The randomness involved is part of the deal. These are someone else’s leftovers, after all. Such apps are bringing consumers into the food waste fight (and giving them access to discounted groceries or prepared food; a tray of 12 turkey sliders from Lucky priced at $15.99 in store was recently selling for $7.99 on the app). There is also an existing pipeline Apps have become valuable tools in the effort to reduce the amount of food that ends up in landfills. By Dave Faries Left: Produce and other items from Lucky’s Sand City location available on the Flashfood app. The offerings vary daily, but generally include boxes of produce, all at discounted prices. Unsold loaves of bread set aside at Ad Astra in Monterey for sale on the Too Good To Go app. The 10-15 loaves available each day sell quickly.
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