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???

Yup, we use it quite often. Had a fair few Greggs ones which are great and we often buy from a local vegan baker on there, amazing stuff.

I can’t imagine what in the spar one. They don’t sell much fresh stuff. Should give it a go. Only £3.27 if you can grab it.

I love this!!! I get lots from supermarkets and the kids think it's a real treat

Sorry pressed too soon!
to see what is in and make up recipes with the contents.

We love it! We are in contest with some friends to see who can get the best bag!

Never managed to get anything on it. Always says sold out no matter what time of day I check it.

Has anyone tried it from Le Pain Quotidien? I'm going into London this evening and there's one right by the restaurant, but I'd have to pick up before the meal - just wondering if I'm going to end up turning up at the restaurant with a bag full of baguettes?!

Today's greggs bag - best we've had in a while. £2.59 for:

2 x iced doughnuts
4 x triple chocolate cookies
1x chicken club baguette
1x tandoori chicken baguette
2x pain au chocolat
1x chicken bake
4x sausage rolls

They say the value of the Gregg's bag is £8 but I think more than that in my bag - the sausage rolls are £1 each, the baguettes probably more, £1 for the cookies, probably 75p each for the pains au chocolate, 50p each for the doughnuts?

Reckon at least £10 of stuff for £2.59. And with three teenage kids in the house it will disappear quickly enough.

@BookShark

Has anyone tried it from Le Pain Quotidien? I'm going into London this evening and there's one right by the restaurant, but I'd have to pick up before the meal - just wondering if I'm going to end up turning up at the restaurant with a bag full of baguettes?!

It's a possibility.... but equally likely that you'd get croissants, pastries and breakfast/lunch fruit stuff.

That’s a good haul. Love seeing the bags. Still to get to one in time.

Bloody Costa cancelled my bag 34 minutes before collection today. I had already set off too and didn't get the notification until I was at the shops. I didnt realise they had a minimum time period for cancellations until I read upthread. Its two hours in the terms and conditions so have sent them an email.

So I passed in the end as I'd forgotten to take a bag and just thought that I didn't really need a mountain of carbs. But will definitely keep an eye out for future - there's a lot more choice in London than there is locally (unsurprisingly, but I hadn't realised quite how good it could be - assuming the hauls are worth it!).

I've seen lots of these "Too Good To Go" posts on Facebook.

It looks to me like an app for hoarders of food. Mainly it seems to be cakes and pastries from coffee shops which would not enhance my life at all.

It is encouraging people to be a human dust bin. Shops and outlets need to get better at ordering and selling the correct amount of food and after all that donating the rest to the truly needy (homeless?) free of charge. If we can put a man on the moon we can work out a way to do this.

@Chicchicchicchiclana

It is encouraging people to be a human dust bin. Shops and outlets need to get better at ordering and selling the correct amount of food and after all that donating the rest to the truly needy (homeless?) free of charge. If we can put a man on the moon we can work out a way to do this.

It's not encouraging people to be a human dust bin, don't be ridiculous.

Many of big supermarkets have already signed up to some sort of charitable giving for their excess or out of date stock. Many of the shops on too good to go are either small independents which have small amounts of food which it's not worth a charity collecting, or places like bakeries where the stuff is really only good that day or the day after.

I would dearly love to hoard food. But with three teenage kids and a husband working from home, food cannot be hoarded as it disappears like snow off a dyke.

It is encouraging people to be a human dust bin. Shops and outlets need to get better at ordering and selling the correct amount of food and after all that donating the rest to the truly needy (homeless?) free of charge. If we can put a man on the moon we can work out a way to do this.

It's really not. Most of the places involved a) don't have the quantities to justify a large-scale surplus program b) are dealing with food that needs to be eaten the same day. So sending it to a food bank isn't a go-er. I'm sure some places do offer food to local homeless people but unless you've got a steady supply of homeless people outside your cafe door it isn't always workable. And most places want to be very very good at estimating how many curries/croissants/maki rolls they're going to sell that day, for the sake of minimising costs if nothing else, but you can't get that figure down to zero. Even McD's gets it wrong because it's impossible to guess correctly down to the last burger every day.

(I run a food bank and use TGTG personally, fwiw)

have started getting this - very fresh, but mis-shapen www.earthandwheat.com/contact

Inspired by this thread, I signed up today and immediately reserved a Magic Bag from our local organic shop - €4 for 2 big blocks of almost out-of-date mozzarella which have gone in the freezer until our next pizza night, a load of slightly wrinkled apples which I've stewed, a very ripe mango which will be perfect in a smoothie in the morning, a few oranges...and (I love the randomness) a lifetime supply of fresh turmeric root (I'll freeze it). I'll certainly do it again. In fact I've already reserved a bag of plants from a local garden centre for collection tomorrow.

Yes we do, now and again.

We have Morrisons, Greggs, costa and cafe Nero locally.

Cafe Nero usually cancel the order a few hours before the collection time. Costa is hit and miss- sometimes it's great, other times we just get a few vegan toasties. Greggs is pretty good, sometimes we get lots more than they're meant to give which is a nice bonus. Morrison's is generally lots of fruit and veg, and it's often a good few days left before it's best before date rather than just yellow sticker items. They're pretty hard to get hold of though!

We tend to take whatever we get to work for lunch the next day, or put it in the kids lunchboxes if it's suitable.

I've used it a few times but I prefer Karma, bit more expensive but you know what you're getting.
karma.life/

Only used it once but loved it!

Tried it but in our locality there is just not much on offer. Wasn’t very impressed so far.

[quote YoungBritishPissArtist]I've used it a few times but I prefer Karma, bit more expensive but you know what you're getting.
karma.life/[/quote]
I have the Karma app but have never found a single thing advertised on it.
Which area are you in?

I have the Karma app but have never found a single thing advertised on it.
Which area are you in?

I'm in London. Karma only seems to be available in larger cities!