WHEN I saw a new food bargain feature flash up on my most-used deals app, Too Good to Go, I immediately had to try it out.
I love using the app to grab bags of leftovers from local restaurants and shops including Pret, Greggs and Costa Coffee.
But now you can order boxes of store cupboard food and drinks that brands like Heinz, Fanta, Tony’s Chocolonely and Nature Valley can’t sell in shops.
The products are either wrongly labelled, have imperfect packaging, or are close to, or past, their best-before date.
Rather than chucking the products away, it’s packaged up into a Too Good To Go parcel and some of the prices are half the recommended retail price.
There were lots of offers I liked, including J20 drinks and Lee Kum Kee Chinese sauces.
The app had 24 500ml Fanta Zero Fruit Twists for £19.99, compared with £1.80 each for individual bottles or £18 for a pack of 12 at supermarkets.
There was a £25 parcel of posh brand Tony’s Chocolonely, which included 38 bars of 35g and 20g sea salt chocolate bars.
But with three kids who love something on toast for their after-school snack, I opted for the Beans Lover Parcel.
The listing promised at least 16 beans products from Heinz.
Unlike the usual pick-up options on Too Good to Go, I had an idea of what I’d receive.
The listing said it would include five full-size 415g tins of baked beans and baked beans with vegan sausages, and 12 mini 200g tins, including plain Heinz Beanz, the no-added sugar version, one with pork sausages and one in tomato sauce, plus “other surprises”.
[bc_video account_id=”5067014667001″ application_id=”” aspect_ratio=”16:9″ autoplay=”” caption=”My budget’s so strict I pray at the till on my food shop – this week I did it for a family of 4 for £100, here’s my haul” embed=”in-page” experience_id=”” height=”100%” language_detection=”” max_height=”360px” max_width=”640px” min_width=”0px” mute=”” padding_top=”56%” picture_in_picture=”” player_id=”default” playlist_id=”” playsinline=”” sizing=”responsive” video_id=”6368551169112″ video_ids=”” width=”640px”]The listing added that the tins’ best before dates would be from December 31, 2024, to February 28, 2025, explaining: “The best before date is a guide to food quality only.
“This product should still be great to consume for at least three months beyond this date. Always remember to look, smell, taste!”
The price was listed at £12.99 – and it claimed the value of the whole package was £27.
[authenticated-scripts src=”%3Cscript%20class%3D%22palin-poll%22%20src%3D%22https%3A%2F%2Fwww.thesun.co.uk%2Fpollingwidgets%2Fv3%2Fwidget.js%3Fquestion_id%3D110196%26game%3Dpolling%22%3E%3C%2Fscript%3E” type=”embedded” width=”100″ /]I was disappointed to see an extra postage fee added, though.
I ended up paying £14.97 for the Beans Lover Parcel.
Ordering on a Sunday morning, I was told delivery would be three to five business days.
My Too Good to Go parcel arrived in a big cardboard box the following Friday via a local courier service.
Opening it up, I found much more than what was listed – in total, I had 22 tins of baked beans.
That was made up of:
- Two four-packs of mini 200g beans tins
- One six-pack of mini 200g tins
- Seven individual 200g mini tins – 5 x no added sugar, 1x tomato sauce, 1x pork sausage
- Four 415g tins (three baked beans with vegan sausages, and one baked beans in tomato sauce)
Half of the beans’ best-before dates were February 2025, when they arrived, and half were in January 2025.
Two of the tins had dents in them.
But when we opened them up, they were the same colour, shape and taste that we expected.
The kids loved our beans on toast snacks after school.
But when I compared the price with buying the same beans at the supermarket, I wasn’t overly impressed.
I found the same amount of beans would cost £19.87 at Asda – and have two years left before their best-before date, while the cost at Tesco was £20.50.
That meant just a £4.90 saving – and I had a lot of tiny tins to squash into my cupboard, where normally I’d go for bigger tins for the whole family and have less wasted packaging.
Overall the savings didn’t seem worth it.
If you’re happy with own-brand beans then you would end up paying more than if you shopped at the supermarket.
Plus, there was the problem of finding space for 22 tins of beans in my kitchen.
The company does point out that the majority of food in Too Good To Go parcels is “ambient food” – meaning it can safely be stored at room temperature and doesn’t need to be eaten right away.
It says: “Your food may be coming up to its ‘best before’ date – however, [this is] a quality indicator, not a safety indicator. Many products are perfectly good to eat even after that date, if stored properly.”
It also advises shoppers: “Build your shopping list around your parcel: if you received rice, pasta or another dish in the making, allow that to inspire your shopping list.
“Share with friends, family, coworkers and neighbours: if you get more shelf-stable food than you are sure what to do with, share it with those around you.
“Meal prep from rescued food: rescue a Surprise Bag and a Too Good To Go Parcel and build your meal plan for the week from what you receive.”