Mystery Bags and official food waste thread

Post Reply
User avatar
Pete
Posts: 7589
Joined: Fri 15 Aug, 2003 13.36
Location: Dundee

So I've recently signed up for the TooGoodToGo app which lets you hunt down end of day food at knock down prices.

The first day I'd got a bag from Starbucks for £3.50 which included a tuna panini, a salad, and a cinnamon bun. Which is value for money but not amazing food bc Starbucks food is crap anyway and i'd only gone there as I'd tagged along with people from work who were introducing me to the app.

Last night though I got a small cheese and tomato pizza from Papa Johns for £3.99. I'm assuming they had too much dough that was going off soon so they were just trying to flog it with the cheapest topping rather than throw it in the bin.

Apparently Greggs and Costa appear on the app quite often. The BP garages with the M&S franchise offer a "grocery bag" for £4 every night and the polish supermarket is always a permanent fixture at the end of the day.

Please list your wins and fails with such matters in this thread.
"He has to be larger than bacon"
User avatar
Finn
Posts: 610
Joined: Sun 06 Nov, 2005 17.02
Location: Manchester

I got two veggie burritos from BarBurrito for £5.20 the other day.

I may get a veggie carvery for £3.50 next week.
gottago
Posts: 260
Joined: Thu 29 Jan, 2009 19.50

A lot of hotels in my part of London did this (pre pandemic at least) at the end of their breakfasts and it would be a great way of getting a huge bag full of fruit, pastries and the odd yoghurt for £2 at around 10am at the weekend.
thegeek
Posts: 858
Joined: Sat 04 Jun, 2005 12.35

yep, I did quite well out of a local Ibis - it was good for a late breakfast on the way into work, but since going vegetarian it's a bit more hit-and-miss what I can get from them.

We've got some local trendy coffee shops on the app, and they can be great - one gave me a couple of bottle of homemade lemonade and a loaf of sourdough, and another usually does a bag of 4 or 5 fancy cakes and pastries (normally £2-3 each) for about £3. It's so popular that it usually sells out within half an hour of them putting it online, though on the last couple of occasions where I successfully bought it, they refunded me because they sold too many at full price...
User avatar
Beep
Posts: 738
Joined: Sat 24 Mar, 2007 23.53
Location: That London

At the start of the pandemic I got a £3.50 mystery bag from Paul on TooGoodToGo.

The bag was 3 bags, one with 5 baguettes in it, one was full of pastries and the other had a platter of small sandwiches in it.

I think their retail value would've been close to £45. May have just been a quirk of the lack of footfall and over baking but I called that a win, and it was sufficient to feed an entire team of people at work.

I sometimes use it to get stuff from the Caffe Nero over the road from me; which seems to vary on amounts of stuff that they give out. Once I got a bag with 2 croissants and a brownie slice in it, another time I got a bag full of pre-packaged sandwiches.
User avatar
Pete
Posts: 7589
Joined: Fri 15 Aug, 2003 13.36
Location: Dundee

Yes how does stuff like this work for vegetarian / vegan / gluten free? Is it just luck of the draw? I assume unless somewhere has a fairly large amount of waste they can't really separate their magic bags into ones for certain diets. Unless that is they're a dedicated vegan (or whatever) outlet which I suppose would also cover the issue for halal / kosher.
"He has to be larger than bacon"
User avatar
Beep
Posts: 738
Joined: Sat 24 Mar, 2007 23.53
Location: That London

Pete wrote: Mon 20 Sep, 2021 08.32 Yes how does stuff like this work for vegetarian / vegan / gluten free? Is it just luck of the draw? I assume unless somewhere has a fairly large amount of waste they can't really separate their magic bags into ones for certain diets. Unless that is they're a dedicated vegan (or whatever) outlet which I suppose would also cover the issue for halal / kosher.
Sometimes the outlet lists them as vegan or veggie. Kiosk at King's Cross Station will ask you specifically what you want and package it up while you wait - effectively just taking the food off the shelves there and then (and they used to give you a 2 hour window at the end of breakfast/the day to collect so it wasn't necessarily wasted food either).
thegeek
Posts: 858
Joined: Sat 04 Jun, 2005 12.35

£12 for 12 cans of pretty decent beer (best before date about 4 weeks away) from a local brewery. Happy with that one.
User avatar
WillPS
Posts: 2456
Joined: Tue 22 Apr, 2008 18.32
Location: Carlton
Contact:

Pete wrote: Mon 20 Sep, 2021 08.32 Yes how does stuff like this work for vegetarian / vegan / gluten free? Is it just luck of the draw?
Yes it is, although when I collected an Auntie Annes bag a while back (love that place) they did ask if I'd prefer a vegetarian one.

Best results I've had so far have been Sbarro, where you end up with either a full (gigantic) pizza's worth of slices or most of a pizza and some of their Stromboli for about £6. Keeps for ages too.

Too bad Eurogarages seem to be giving up on the brand.
Image
Post Reply