If you’ve never used the Too Good To Go App in Chippenham before – what are you waiting for?
We first started using the Too Good to Go app six months ago. It’s easy to use, download the app to your phone and allow it to use your current location. You will immediately see Food bag offers from businesses in Chippenham and surrounds usually to collect the same day or early the next morning. You select the bag that takes your fancy and complete your purchase on the app.
The contents of the bags is almost always a surprise, though you can select certain categories. For example Morrisons Bakery, Aldi Grocery. If you choose Parsons or Greggs you can get a fairly good idea of what you might get. Similarly if you want fresh fruit and vegetables then choose SK Fruits and you will get Fruit and Veg.
When the time comes to collect your bag you show your app collection code in the shop, they either give you your bag there and then, or often put one together while you wait. You then swipe on the app to show you’ve collected.
Why would I want a random bag of food?
Well, firstly the price. You typically pay £3-50 per bag and are guaranteed to receive retail goods worth three to four times that value. The catch being the food usually needs to be used almost immediately as it will be on best before or use by dates. With some foods you can obviously make your own assessment as to whether it will keep.
The example below is a £2 Too Good to Go Bakery Bag from Morrisons Chippenham we picked up yesterday.
I’m sure you’ll agree that for £2 this box is an absolute bargain, though admittedly we could throw a party with that quantity of Doughnuts. The app does tell you how much Carbon you’ve saved from landfill with your choices, so that is a good incentive.
Of all the boxes we’ve tried across Chippenham the supermarkets and SK Fruits have been particularly good value. SK Fruits allows you to avoid any processed foods as it is all Fruit and Veg, though you may find yourself looking up jam recipes. Some of the Aldi boxes have been spectacular!
The larger coffee chains tend to be worse value. I think this is because their retail prices start quite high, and so you get a relatively small quantity of random items. Though we have found Parsons to be good value.
So what are the Pros of Too Good to Go?
- A way of buying exceptional value food
- Avoiding food waste going to landfill with a CO2 equivalent given in easily understandable terms
- The fun of opening a surprise bag!
- The typical price ranges from £2 to £3-50 are well thought through and worth a punt.
- You can get food delivered
The cons…
- The selection will be random, though you can specify allergy choices and supermarkets differentiate between different bag types
- You will probably eat more processed food unless you choose fruit and veg
- Though you can bring your own bag you can get more food packaging
- The food is at its date and needs to be used quickly
- Popular bags are sometimes cancelled before you pick up when supermarkets run out.
- You have to pick up in the time ranges specified
I have to admit, i like the Too Good To Go app so much that I was wary of sharing it too widely. Even though i’m a big fan of Doughnut Economics, even I can’t eat that many doughnuts!
Matthew