too good to go food waste app - anyone else use it?

[TheGenealogist]

Huge fan of this app - friend told me about it over lockdown and after I'd had my first "magic bag" I was hooked! The basic idea is that you pay for a lucky bag of food from a local retailer which would otherwise have gone in the bin. Picked up a bag from a M&S petrol station shop last night, cost me £4, got two large packs of salmon, two panini wraps, two packs of sandwiches, a side salad, a bag of mixed veg, and a pack of melon. Greggs also do bags which the kids enjoy - most of the bags we've had from there have a couple of the bakes, sausage rolls, cakes, pastries.

Yes it's all short-dated, yellow sticker stuff but lots can be frozen. Or eaten the next day. Definitely worth looking at if you're flexible about what you eat. Lots of restaurants do it too, although pick up times can be much later in the evening.

Any other fans???

This is intriguing, I hadn’t heard of it before. Just downloaded the App for a look at what’s available locally.

I also have the Olio App, which is free food and other stuff, all very local and also to stop things being thrown away.

Hit and miss.
I collect from a local convenience store and that's my favourite, except after getting quite a few, one after another - we ended up with weeks and weeks worth of out of date that day yoghurt.

Also collected from a vegan store once, hoping for good quality items, but nope..mostly out of date left on the shelf items... and the bag was over £6.

Collected from Costa, and that was just a joke, few rubbish pasties in a tiny little bag. Wouldn't bother again unless I'm feeling flush.

Also hate the Russian roulette of .... Will they cancel?! I managed to nab myself a much wanted (needed!) Bag from a shop I was really interested in, just for it to be cancelled... not once but twice. Caught me out by not having anything else in the house to eat!

So, pros and cons. I've found that that money is tight, I get just as good value buying what I actually want cheap, or raiding the yellow sticker aisles! At least that way I'm not lumbered with 50 pots of yoghurt that went off that day, or 10 stale cakes that I feel so guilty I have to eat...

Ps. However I really rate olio, except competition for certain items is very high.

We have it here in Spain but not much choice where we are, having said that we always get a subway one if we are in town. We haven't been disappointed yet.
Or a bp garage is near us do the weirdest and most random magic bags.

Loads of out of date yogurts would be hard to use.

Quite regularly see yoghurts or similar like little individual servings of trifle or chocolate mousses in the BP garage / M&S magic bags. But not loads, 2 or 3 perhaps at the most. But with 5 people in this house they soon get eaten.

It helps that i'm not precious about eat by dates, if I pick up a magic bag at 9pm I'm more than happy to eat things the next day. And a couple of days after that, if it's fruit.

Have a Gregg's bag booked for later this afternoon. Shall report back.

The spar shop has a magic bag up for grabs, and the garage supermarket type shop also has one.

Spar shop I don’t shop in ever. Don’t know why.

Should I grab a bag from either? First timer. Also vegetarian, but have meat eaters in the household. Raw chicken breasts in the bag would be awful for me personally.

My local cake shop does it - usually yet about 6 cakes and some cookies, it's fabulous.

They aren't allowed to cancel if it's within an hour (I think) of collection time. Report them if they cancel too late minute.

Go for it @DobbyTheHouseElk. If you search on twitter or instagram using #toogoodtogo you'll see pictures of what other people have got in their bags.

You might get chicken breasts, fish, pork, who knows? We've had fishcakes, chicken portions with sauce, think we had some turkey breast after CHristmas. But i'd say it was more likely to be sandwiches, yoghurt, breakfast bowls, fruit.

I also find it weirdly fascinating to see other #toogoodtogo bags from around the world. Love a foreign supermarket.

I’ve only recently discovered it and have used it twice so far. Both times amazingly good value and so much tasty food. The second was a Leon order for 3.75 and I calculated it was worth about £15. They even gave me a smoothie and couple desserts.

I have never ordered anything as never saw anything appealing so deleted the app. Might have another look though.

We are more than happy to eat yellow label anything & 90% of our fresh goods are yellow label (Tesco on a Friday night here is brill). I have got into a habit of nipping to the Co-OP 2 mins walk away, around 7pm most nights. Had so much stuff I only now need to go to Aldi after 10 days & that is with 3 hungry Dses at home for over a week

I do these at work.
Originally, my app was pre-set to four magic bags per day but I wanted to avoid having to cancel them and have customers disappointed so I only put them up for sale if I know I can honour the transaction.
If I can do a veggie only option I will but we’re limited to what we have going out of date that day. There’s rules too, the bag must have a retail value of over £11 and contain a mix of savoury and sweet. If we only have a load of pastries going and no sandwiches then I’ll just throw them because they won’t meet the criteria for a bag.

Interesting that they ask for a mix of sweet and savoury - unless you're a retailer which only sells one or the other, I suppose.

Do you know what percentage of the money your employer gets per bag? @AmazingBouncingFerret

I have no idea, I’m sorry!

Just taken a look at what's on the app for here right now. Got the usual a few Costa, bakery, spar places. And we have quite a few greengrocers - I don't bother with them anymore as have done a couple of boxes and used to get the most ragged bashed about produce. I don't mind cutting a bad bit off an apple, but fully brown badly bruised fruit with barely anything worth eating, yellowing broccoli, wilted salad a bit beyond what I'm willing to turn into soup or smoothies! There are a few industrial catering places on most days, one does a tray of 30 free range eggs for £2.50. Another I think makes sandwiches and sells sandwiches, crisps and trays of cartons of apple juice basically every weekday!

I miss the hotel breakfast buffets - haven't seen them since covid. Used to love being given a box and going around building random combos of leftover sausages and bacon and cheese from the continental section and mini pastries!

Our local Greggs doesn’t take part in it. I haven’t found anything local to me on there yet.

If you live in a city it must be amazing. It’s few and far between here.

• Notthecarwashagain

Yes! I only get the Greggs or Starbucks ones because we’re vegetarian and I don’t want to be lumbered with a joint of meat or something*

I don’t eat meat and wasn’t sure if they are worth it, there is Greggs near us but I wondered wouldn’t it be sausage rolls and tuna sandwiches steak bakes etc?? That’s in the ones I’ve seen people get

Not a fan of olio I listed something and the man never showed up or cancelled so for me I wouldn’t use it again as I haven’t got patience for time wasters

Hmm bags cancelled again today. 😩 I didn't know that about not being allowed to cancel within an hour, today's was very close to that, I'll have to check the time on the message.
Wonder if it's worth persisting?

Sounds like you local retailers are a bit flaky @DaxtheDestroyer. I've only ever had one bag cancelled, that was Costa I think.

We've done this a couple of times for our local Greggs. Got loads of stuff. I'm going to try the Spar one next to see what's in that.

I've used it but as a vegetarian with what is available near me in Newcastle I haven't forund it that great.