Sushi, breads made from artisan flour, soups and many pastries, as well as sandwiches, are all available. For the past week I’ve not cooked once — all my meals have come from shops, bakeries and restaurants. Because of this, my jeans are no longer able to be zipped up.
But rather than being on some extravagant spending spree, I’ve actually saved myself a small fortune.
You may be wondering how? It’s all thanks to an app that aims to reduce the 9.5 million tonnes of food we waste annually.
Too Good To Go offers users the opportunity to purchase and collect food bags from more than 15,000 local businesses for a greatly discounted price.
Claudia Connell (pictured) gives her verdict on the Too Good To Go app, which allows users to buy and collect bags of unused food at a hugely discounted price
The catch is you don’t know what you’re getting until you pick up what they call a ‘magic bag’ from the outlet. There are many ways to get amazing food. You could also end up with a selection of goods you’d never dream of buying. In other words, it’s a lucky dip.
With the chance to bag cut-price goodies from businesses such as M&S, Waitrose, Pret a Manger and Leon, it’s no wonder Too Good To Go has become something of a middle-class brag.
It was launched in the UK in 2016 and now sells over 500,000 bags per month.
However, was it too good to believe?
DAY ONE
BREAKFAST: Pret, £9 worth of food for £3.
LUNCH & DINNER: Greggs, £10 worth of food for £2.59.
Download the app and input my details, including location and debit card.
Living in Brighton, I’m spoilt for choice of food outlets, and am excited about my first magic bag as I join the seven million other users in the UK.
It shows you the availability of what’s available now, tomorrow or later. The food bags are limited, so it’s a question of first come, first served.
Start by booking breakfast at Pret, and then grabbing a bag lunch from Greggs.
Users get a very limited window to pick up their bags and, being a newbie, I haven’t considered the logistics.
I can collect my Pret breakfast from 10-10.30am but I can’t collect my Greggs bag until 2.30pm, even though they are next door to one another — I’ll have to go home, then come back.
Pret offers me a box of porridge and a breakfast roll with cheese and tomatoes. All in all, a deliciously satisfying start.
Later I’m joined by three more women as they wait for their Greggs magic bags. ‘I’ve been doing this for three months and Greggs give the best value bags,’ one of them tells me, adding: ‘Don’t bother with M&S — they’re as tight as anything.’
Claudia said she was spoilt for choice of food outlets and began trialing the app by reserving breakfast from Pret and a lunch bag from Greggs. Greggs Food.
Taken home, I find six white baguettes and two yum-yum doughnuts. Also, two iced raspberry donuts. A chicken and bacon baguette, and two large jam sandwich biscuits.
Feeling too full, I freeze baguettes to eat later.
The problem with evening meals is that, because it’s unsold food, it isn’t available until 9.30pm.
Even though I love my local chippy and the food, am I willing to eat cod and chips all night?
DAY TWO
BREAKFAST: The Flour Pot Bakery, £14 worth of food for £3.50.
LUNCH: Costa Coffee, £10 worth of food for £3.
DINNER: Third Avenue bakery, £13.50 worth of food for £3.50.
The Flour Pot Bakery is a small chain of artisan bakers where I have happily paid £4 for a single loaf. This morning I pay £3.50 and collect a bag that contains a wholemeal baguette, a sunflower rye loaf, two Danish pastries, two pains au chocolat and two croissants. It is truly a magical bag.
I’m still in my pastry coma when it’s time to collect my lunch from Costa.
Claudia said Starbucks is popular with app users for offering generous bags, and she agrees after getting £10 worth of food for £4
My large mince pie, 2 Bakewell slices and an iced Cinnamon Bun, as well as 2 Bakewell Slices and 1 packet of Fizzy Sweets, is a far cry from the Flour Pot. I hate Bakewell slices and I’m afraid I end up binning the food I was meant to rescue.
Later, at independent bakery Third Avenue in Hove, my £3.50 gets me: a loaf of sourdough, an apple Danish, a cheese scone, a raisin scone, cinnamon bun and almond croissant. It’s delicious but it’s not really ‘dinner’.
DAY THREE
LUNCH: Pret, £14 worth of food for £4.
Snacks for Afternoon Starbucks, £10 worth of food for £4.
DINNER: Little Waitrose, £15 worth of food (reduced to £7.79) for £5.
My first bag is lunch from Pret — three piping hot chicken katsu curry soups and a meatball wrap.
Starbucks has a lot of app users because they offer generous bags. I’m a big fan: I receive muffins, cookies, and a falafel wrap.
My first grocery bag is reserved from Little Waitrose in the evening. It’s located at a Shell garage just six miles away. I pick up my bag at 10pm — an avocado and feta salad, a pack of onion bhajis, a chicken and tabbouleh salad, a ready meal of chicken in satay sauce and a pack of Quorn cocktail sausages.
Claudia said the bags she got from Morrisons were filled with cheese, ham, a meat pie, vegetables, milk, yoghurt, bread, baked beans, custard, noodles and fresh vegetables for £3
But, what’s this? The food is all ‘yellow-stickered’, meaning it has already been hugely reduced.
‘You have to remember that while we want to provide a good service and value for money, our core aim is to not put any food in the bin. So, yes, you will get yellow-stickered food from supermarkets,’ says managing director Paschalis Loucaides, informing me that Too Good To Go make £1.09 on every magic bag sold.
DAY FOUR
LUNCH: Greggs, £10 worth of food for £2.59.
Snacks for Afternoon Caffe Nero, £15 worth of food for £3.09.
DINNER: Morrisons, £11.50 worth of food for £3.
Greggs offers another diet-busting, but generously-sized bag. Then comes a sprint across the town to Caffe Nero. A sales associate is in an obvious generous mood offering toasties and sandwiches as well as two brownies and a panini. He is meant to give me food worth £10 but it’s closer to £15.
I raced to Morrisons just in time to be there by 6.30pm. Two bags are handed to me by the assistant. They’re so heavy that I have trouble lifting them. Back home, I marvel at my haul: cheese, ham, a meat pie, vegetables, milk, yoghurt, bread, baked beans, custard, noodles and fresh vegetables — all for £3.
This bag would come in handy for a family struggling to make ends meet.
Claudia admits she became weirdly addicted to the app by her last day, despite being disappointed with the yellow-sticker items from M&S
DAY 5
BREAKFAST: FCB coffee, £12 worth of food for £3.99.
DINNER: Yo Sushi, £10 worth of food for £3.50.
MIDNIGHT FEST: M&S, £12 worth of food (but yellow-sticker prices added up to £5.18) for £4.
My last day of using the app, which I’m becoming weirdly addicted to. I head to an FCB coffee unit at Brighton station, where I pick up a Cheddar ploughman’s, a sausage roll and two cheese and ham croissants as well as a Danish pastry.
Finally, to Yo! Sushi was where Grace met me, and she tells how Too Good To Be has been a lifesaver.
I’m tucking into my tray of salmon and tuna sushi when I see a Leon dinner and a Marks & Spencer bag have become available. What should I choose?
Who doesn’t love M&S food? I reserve a £4 bag and hope I end up with some delicious favourites — but sadly it’s just another yellow-stickered disappointment. The price of my roast chicken sandwich is now 64p, and the mince pies that I must eat on that day aren’t very good.
There’s a Victoria sponge, a potato salad, a croissant and three jam doughnuts.
I add up the yellow-sticker prices and discover I haven’t saved a penny. Greggs should have told me to listen.
TOTAL: £166 OF FOOD FOR £48.76