I tested food waste app for a week – it cost half as much as my usual shop

I TRIED to survive off nearly-scrapped meals for a week through a food wastage scheme offering wonky veg and restaurant leftovers at bargain prices.

The app definitely saved me money – but there was a big downside.

Here’s how it works…

You open the Too Good To Go app and set the location radius from between 1km and 30km to scout out the options in your area.

There are establishments offering meals and groceries, as well as bakeries and shops selling breads and pastries.

Each shop will have a surprise bag (or box) of surplus goods that are about to go off, and will set a pick-up window for collection.

You won’t know what you’ve got until you open your bag – which is all part of the fun, but can be quite annoying as I learned.

Even with the same shop, what you get will change with each order on a daily basis.

What you receive depends on what is left over at the end of the day, although the app does tell you what you can expect as a rough guide.

Days 1 & 2: A box of limp veg

Day one and my first problem arose – trying to find a Too Good To Go option that I could pick up outside of my working hours.

Fortunately, I found a £4 surprise bag from Petit Village, a nearby green grocers roughly a 15 minute walk from my house.

It was the last one left, and had a decent collection time between 12pm and 6pm. 

I dashed off after to work to go collect my bounty.

While some establishments will need to cook or pack your food once you arrive to collect your order, others – like Petit Village – will have your surprise bag ready and waiting.

I showed the man behind the counter my collection code, and confirmed in the app that I was collecting, before being handed a crate full of vegetables.

I got a bag of cherry tomatoes, three larger tomatoes, two avocados, a head of lettuce, a green pepper, four red chillies, seven carrots and a fistful of beets. 

Now, these vegetables were pretty limp, one of the avocados was squishy, some of the carrots were bendy and the lettuce had certainly seen better days.

But that’s the whole point, right?

They were all edible (apart from a funky-looking carrot I composted).

And as another example of technological brilliance (or laziness) I used ChatGPT to conjure meals with those exact ingredients.

You can do the same, with my prompt: “Please give me five recipe ideas using at least four of the following ingredients…” and then list your produce.

You can even throw in a few bits you might already have in your cupboard – like pasta or cous cous, or some stuff lurking in the freezer.

All the options sounded great, and I reworked a roasted vegetable salad suggestion into a Moroccan-style cous cous, and whipped up a spicy tomato salsa and guacamole to have with some chips.

The lettuce went into a salad along with the second avocado and some more cherry tomatoes on Day 2, which paired nicely with a fishcake I had in the freezer.

When it comes to making meals with surplus goods – time is of the essence.

You don’t have long until these veg are deemed inedible.

That’s when I start looking for my next meal…

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Days 3 and 4: Monster lasagna

At this point, my box of veg is running low – and it’s all getting too limp for my liking.

The night before, I tapped ‘buy’ on a £3.99 surprise bag from The Laundry, a popular restaurant in London’s Brixton that is a two minute walk from a friend’s flat.

It’s a lovely restaurant that my friend and I have been meaning to try for a while – where a main costs between £18 and £26.

So, £3.99 is a steal – and the generous portion of lasagne with a side of carrots and roasted butternut squash tasted really good.

It even had a decent collection slot of between 10am and 11:40am – which I could dash out to as I wasn’t working that day.

This was my lunch on Day 3, and even on Day 4 – the portion really was of monster proportions.

One surprise box from this place could honestly feed two!

WHAT OPTIONS ARE THERE?

There are all kinds of shops, bakeries, cafes, restaurants, and supermarkets giving food away for cheap on the Too Good To Go app.

Shops include: Aldi, Morrisons, Co-op, Budgens, Londis, Nisa and even M&S.

Restaurants and cafes include: Greggs, Pizza Express, Fireaway, Costa, Starbucks, Pret, Cafe Nero, Gail’s, Yo Sushi, Carluccios, Harvester, Toby Carvery and more.

Some train stations even have options.

Plus, there are tons of independent cafes, restaurants, bakeries and delis if you want to try something new without breaking the bank.

You will have more options in large towns and cities, like London.

Although some quieter parts of the capital do seem a bit short of choice.

Smaller places and villages might not have any retailers listed – and when they do, you could have some competition.

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Days 4 and 5: Mid Mediterranean

Now even though I have lunch lined up for Day 4 – I need to be alert to what my options are for the rest of the day.

All the best deals get snapped up quick.

So on a hot day, I opted for a £5.20 surprise bag from Paella Street, a stall at Tabard Street Food Market, just a 10 minute walk from the office.

It was supposed to be a post-lunchtime deal, and gave me the smallest collection window I had encountered yet: between 2pm and 2:15pm.

I received two very sweaty boxes of vegan paella – which wouldn’t have cost much more to have fresh.

And to be honest, the state of them left me Googling how to revive old paella.

However, once successfully revived on the hob at home, just one box of the two made a very nice dinner.

The other I stuck in the freezer for a rainy day.

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Day 6: Out of options

At this point, I’m running out of options.

I have a choice to make: eat baked goods for dinner (not ideal), or wait until 10pm to collect a meal suitable enough for tea (also not ideal).

This is where I had to draw the line and go to an actual supermarket.

But it taught me an important lesson about the best time to buy surprise goodies on Too Good To Go.

The verdict

I have spent a total of £13.19 in five days, over three payments.

That’s about £4.40 on average – nearly half what I would usually spend on eating per day.

I usually spend around £170 a month on groceries, across an average of 19 transactions – which is nearly £9 on average every time I go to the shops.

So it does work out cheaper – but is it worth it?

Pros:

• Good variety of food
• Pushes you out of your comfort zone
• Great if you can be spontaneous
• Even better if you use to supplement a slightly smaller weekly shop
• Cheap way to try local restaurants
• Reduces food waste

Cons:

• Often inconvenient in terms of collection hours or location
• Not good for people with allergies or dietary requirements

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