AIBU to think Too Good To Go is mostly disappointing?

It really depends - I've occasionally got one from a coffee shop in our village (a big chain) and it's been very disappointing, but a local independent Indian restaurant does one for £5 and they basically give you stuff for a meal - curry (can choose chicken or veg), rice, naan and a side. It's meant to be a meal for one but with the sides there's just enough to spilt between the two of us (bonus is that collection coincides with school pick up... and it's 5 minutes from the school so a great Friday dinner - pick up bag, pick up Dd, refrigerate and hat up when kids in bed😆)

All of the co-ops near me do them. We treat them like a freezer dinner - every time there has been enough to make a dinner if you squint and don’t mind one person having a ready meal while someone else has a quiche.

Tried a bakery one a couple of times - wouldn’t again. Stale bread is no fun.

The pret round here always do fab tgtg bags, and there's an independent one close that is fab for that. I've had some disappointing bags too though.

I’ve thought about it as I live right in the centre of town but when I see the ‘hauls’ online they seem to be loads of sandwiches. I get that the sandwich was worth £5 when it was sold in the coffee shop but it’s not worth it at home.

The bakery ones are always going to be rubbish. I did it once and we just got crap. My son and his ex-girlfriend used to get a TGTG from Toby Carvery every once in a while and they said it was always lovely with the full range of food. I’ve never done that as the pickup is quite late but they were late eaters.

I’ve had one or two that have been Ok (Pret) but mostly awful.

And they sometimes look at you like you’ve got two heads when you go in asking for the bag you’ve purchased.

It’s leftovers that are going out of date, sometimes you get lucky sometimes not. Once had one cancelled 15 minutes before pick up time as they obviously didn’t have anything to go. It’s pot luck.

The only shops near us that participate are Aldi and a fish & chip shop. No way I’m paying for an Aldi bag and the chippy looked ok until I saw the reviews online that said people had been ill from eating there. Plus they only have a 5 minute collection window 🤷🏻‍♀️. There’s occasionally a collection at Starbucks a bit further out which has been hit and miss and they cancel the bag at least 50% of the time anyway.

i work in a city and there’s rarely any bags during the timeframe I’m there but I’ve had bags from Upper Crust in the station and they are dire.

We had a UK city break last year and used TGTG every day. Couldn’t believe the choice. A few things were naff as just got 4 of the same item which I didn’t like anyway but a couple of the independent shops were amazing. If I lived in a city with great TGTG choices I’d probably use it all the time.

I once had one entirely of pizza express dough balls

best bag of my life. We still talk about it now.

we’ve had mixed bags, some good some not. We keep saying we are going to have roulette for dinner one day, and have a too good to go bag off. Where we all pick one and decide who got the best bag.

My son uses it but I guess you quickly figure out which store usually has decent stuff.

my experience of it has been that it is rubbish and the quality poor. I was expecting more. Maybe that it is the issue

My wife is involved with a community fridge (also known as a community larder) the aim is to prevent food waste.

The amount of food that would otherwise be thrown is astounding. It has got better in the last few months with the supermarkets realising that it's costing them a fortune.

But every week boxes of bananas, loaves of bread often the stuff baked in store, after Christmas parsnips, salid when the weather isn't great. It must amount to about a ton every week and I am not exaggerating.

The food they give us is often just in date or best before, so edible after it. The use by goes to an organisation called Olio which is a great system as it gathers the food in one spot and people can select what they want before going

I’ve received sooo much good stuff. Sometimes in incredible quantities. But it’s often bread and sweet treats which we don’t really eat or try to limit.

but I looove the flower to good to goes. Gorgeous bouquets!

It's very hit and miss, but I have certain bags saved that are great value and I'll buy again and again. A few have been awful value (and I have reviewed them accordingly) and some are essentially special offers where you haven't got to choose the dish. I don't buy any with less than 4 star reviews now, and usually over 4.5 stars.

However, the newer section of posted storecupboard items has been consistently crap IMO. A couple that looked to be ok value never showed up, but mostly I find the products listed can be bought cheaper elsewhere with a regular long date. I don't expect loads for next to nothing, but if I'm getting short date items, with all the extra prep and planning that goes into that, and where I haven't chosen exactly what my money gets me, it needs to have a decent price incentive.

It's very hit and miss. I don't bother with the groceries one after a few bags of stuff I really couldn't use and ended up throwing away.
Greggs is generally excellent and I've had some good deals.

I love the Sainsbury's sushi counter one and usually get about £25 worth of sushi for a fiver, and it's so delicious 😋 thats my fave, I have to set an alarm to make sure I am early enough to get one when I have decided it will be my Friday night treat as they sell out super quick

I have done the Morrisons bakery bag twice - the first one was awesome and did 4 of us a nice picnic tea (cake, donuts, cheese rolls, loaf of bread ...) but the second one was disappointing and was basically just a big bag of gone off bread.

I like the gambling element of it though 😆 it's like a tombola - pay £2.50, prize every time!

It's been recommended to me a few times for when we have been trying to save or there's too much month at the end of our money. It's not really worthwhile in those situations because it's spending more money on things you wouldn't normally buy anyway.
I think if you live in a bigger city and see it as a lucky dip type novelty thing then it can be great. It's definitely not for struggling families.

We've had some great bags from TGTG but we live in a pretty busy area of London known for food options. Lots of independent restaurants, street food, bakeries, Sunday lunch pubs as well as good chains and supermarkets, all within 10 mins walk. You won't get the same options living in a quiet area far from a city centre.

Harris and Hooke bags are excellent. I once received 17 items which included multiple sandwiches. Gail’s are mostly giant loaves so you need to freeze them. Starbucks were grim. Very tired looking sausage or bacon rolls which looked under cooked.

When we first found out about it maybe 4-5 years ago now we thought it was great and went through a real spell of using it. Haven’t bothered since the initial novelty wore off. Most of it is junk food so there’s that but yes it’s very very hit and miss. Sometimes you get loads for the money and feel like you’ve got a real bargain, other times you get basically nothing.

My husband occasionally does a Gregg's one. He got one on Sunday which had 4 sausage rolls, 2 Belgian buns, 2 sandwich/baguette things and a bag of cookies for 2.99. Usually similar contents/quantity when he gets one. He ate the sandwiches for breakfast and lunch thay day, the kids ate the cookies, sausage rolls went in the freezer and husband will have those for lunches with soup or similar, and I inhaled the Belgian buns after the gym 😆

I work in a shop that participates in TGTG - we often offer 2 bags at £3:39 each with a value of at least £11:90 (bag value and price are set by head office not us but we choose what goes in the bags from our yellow stickered stock; focusing on items expiring on the day we get them not the next day) We do not include hot food in the bags as that stuff has a specific time limit from cooking to being discarded which is outside of our collection window. We also generally don’t include more than 1 of any single type of item (so bread or a pastry for example) but may include 2 different fruits or vegetables.

Ive also bought TGTG bags and find some places are more generous than others - our local Greggs do both a morning and an evening bag and they sell out quickly, weekend morning bags are usually more readily available (who wants to be up at 7am on a Sunday for a bag of out of date food?) and, last weekend, we got £18+ food for just £2:99; it meant we had a picnic lunch on Sunday from it and a sweet dessert treat in the afternoon too.

Worst one I got was from a deli cafe type place with a naive food shop attached; the bag cost £5 and was meant to have £16 worth of food in it, there was a pack of 2 stale finger donuts and a tin of 8 shortbread cookies flavoured with lavender which was part of a Queens Diamond Jubilee themed collection - the donuts were apparently worth £5 and the cookies £12 at full price so they met the price requirements but they really weren’t worth the £5 I paid.

I think if you live in a town/city with lots of options, you can do really well out of TGTG but, if like where I live, it’s a convenience shop, a petrol station shop, the pasty/hot counter of a supermarket and Greggs with a couple of artisan hamper companies occasionally sticking out a bag of over stocked items, pickings can end up being slim

I think the initial premise where people got loads for very little leaves people very disappointed when they don’t get a huge haul of stuff.

I do think it’s a shame some large chains have properly monetised it. The staff in one local place have said they’ve been told by head office they’re not allowed to put more than 4 things in a bag. If they have lots left they have to put more bags on, even if they know they’ll only sell a couple.

Some places are still worth it. The Waitrose at the services near us only ever puts one bag on and it’s always very good value. There’s a carvery nearby as well that’s always good.

Costa and Starbucks aren’t worth it now here.

TGTG is very much about avoiding stuff being thrown away, not about doing “their bit” to give someone a nice dinner. The app and FB groups etc are very clear about that.

I think it’s a shame that places have used the concept to charge for ‘stuff’ that would otherwise get sent to landfill, rather than doing their bit for those that might be thinking they could get a dinner they could otherwise ill afford

Unless you are getting the supermarket ones its never going to be a good option for people in dire straits who need cheap food though, basic cooking ingredients to make a meal are always going to be much cheaper than cafe produce even when it' s discounted.

It's a business. Run for other businesses. The business users are the customer for the app.

The best and consistent are carvery the places. One bag provides a roast dinner for two.

Contents vary widely with Starbucks and Costa, but they've also been really good around my area.