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If money is tight, then you’ll already know to keep an eye out for yellow stickers when you go to the supermarket. Another way to save money is to download the Too Good To Go app and save food close-to or past its sell-by date for a reduced price.
You open the app, choose a location, search for a surprise bag you like the look of, place a reservation, pay, head to the place ready for the collection time, show the waiter/shopkeep your code, take your food home. It’s really simple, but we know that getting started can be quite daunting.
Below, we run through a selection of places you can reserve surprise bags on Too Good To Go, and what you can expect when you turn up to collect your food.
Of course, what you get is dependent on what hasn’t sold that day and each individual place may serve their food differently – these mini reviews are meant as a guide only, to show you what you might get. You also don’t get to pick what goes in your surprise bag. If you get things you don’t like, give it away to friends or family – the whole point of Too Good To Go is to reduce food waste, so try to only pick up bags from places you know serves foods you, or your family, likes.
As we try out more Too Good To Go partner businesses, we’ll come back and update this page with reviews of what we receive.
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Hot food surprise bags
We’re starting our Too Good To Go review with a collection of hot surprise bags.
If you reserve a bag from one of the places in this section, chances are you’ll be given hot food.
Toby Carvery
- Bag price: £2.69
- Claimed bag value: £6.99
- Actual bag value: £7.49 (I collected on a Saturday and this is the price of all-you-can eat at the weekend)
Collection was very quick and simple: showed the code to the lady at reception, got given a very hot tub of fry up, and was back in the car in less than 4 minutes.
First thought: Weighty. This surprise tub definitely had some heft to it. Inside, I’d been given a big handful of mushrooms, big spoons of beans and tomatoes, 3 rashers of bacon, 2 fried eggs, 2 sausages, 2 hash browns. All mixed in.
If you don’t eat it right away, you’ve got the potential for some soggy hash browns. The downside? Aside from bean and tomato juice everywhere, is the very short pick up window – this Toby gives you 20 minutes. This bowl was all-I-could-eat, so if I paid for an all-you-can-eat breakfast for £7.49, I would’ve eaten around this amount. Using Too Good To Go for a Toby Carvery breakfast saved me £4.80. Bargain!
Tasty Temptations, Shoreditch
- Bag price: £6.50
- Claimed bag value: £19.50
Tasty Temptations had a couple of surprise bag options, I went for the mixed jollof for £6.50. When I arrived, showed my code, the man served my food up in front of me: it was fresh, hot, and generous.
For my money, my surprise bag contained two tubs: one packed with jollof rice, and one filled with peanut butter stew, topped with some grilled chicken from a different pan. It was a more-than-decent serving. And it was very, very nice.
Pizza Express
- Bag price: £4.95
- Claimed bag value: £14.85
- Actual bag value: £25.85
When we turned up and showed our pickup code, the waiter told us it’d be a 10-15 minute wait. Our food was gonna be fresh from the oven – winner winner!
In our Pizza Express surprise bag, we received dough balls doppio (with two garlic butter dips) and two mozzarella garlic bread pizzas: as it was served fresh, we decided we were going to make the most of it & eat it hot. My car reeked of garlic the next morning but it was definitely worth it.
Stonehouse Pizza & Carvery
- Bag price: £3.39
- Claimed bag value: £9.36
- Actual bag value: £14
According to the menu, a traditional carvery costs £10.49. If you want the full works, then the price rises to £13.99 (for the extra you get the pigs in blankets).
As with Toby Carvery, Stonehouse served their food hot in a cardboard tub. The roast I received fell under ‘Full Works’ on the menu, minus the Yorkshire pudding – those are obviously popular with diners. Three roasties, three pigs in blankets, two meats, a scoop of mash, a stuffing ball, and a big portion of mixed vegetables.
There was a small dribble of gravy on the veg in the bottom of the tub and I’m glad there wasn’t lashings of it… gravy would’ve made it soggy by the time I’d got it home! (I did make and pour over my own gravy.) Paying £3.39 for 14 quids worth of ready-to-eat carvery is a bargain in my eyes.
IKEA
- Bag price: £2
- Claimed bag value: £6
- Actual bag value: £8.40
When we turned up, IKEA forgotten all about Too Good To Go. Rather than turn us away, the canteen staff decided to cook fresh food for the three of us waiting.
Eight plant based balls, chips, and a tiramisu. The plant balls, we decided, weren’t for us at all, but we did try and eat them after making a really strong gravy at home.
Ember Inns
- Bag price: £3.29
- Claimed bag value: n/a
- Actual bag value: Hard to determine
This was an interesting one. The Ember Inns pub had a ‘meat and roastie’ surprise bag, and since you can’t purchase those two items as standalones on their menu, it was impossible to work out the actual price of the bag. Well, tubs. Two of them. You see the pictures under Toby Carvery and Stonehouse? Those size tubs. One packed full of roasties, the other heaped with slices of gammon and a token few slices of turkey.
It was a lot of food for not much money. We’d definitely be going back.
Cold food surprise bags
In this section, we list the bags we received from bakeries, restaurants, cafes, street food vendors whose Too Good To Go bags contained cold food.
Puff Puff Man, Shoreditch
- Bag price: £5
- Claimed bag value: £15
- Actual bag value: £5.50
What did our surprise bag contain? 6 puff puffs with 2 toppings – white and chocolate sauce.
On Too Good To Go, the vendor claimed the bag was £15 worth of food. Looking at the menu, six puff puffs are £4.50, each topping is 50p, so the actual value of this surprise bag was £5.50. In this instance, I saved 50p by getting leftover food on Too Good To Go. Tor the sake of 50p, it would’ve been better to go during the day for fresh puff puffs. No complaints about the taste, mind you.
Greggs
- Bag price: £2.59
- Claimed bag value: £8
- Actual bag value: £13.40
We’ve tried Greggs out a few times, and every time the actual value of the food in the bag is higher than the value claimed on Too Good To Go. It’s no surprise a Greggs Too Good To Go bag is snapped up in no time.
Our bag for this update contained:
- A ham and cheese sandwich
- A tuna roll
- A chicken and bacon pasta
- Four pack of jam doughnuts
Grocery surprise bags
Of all the surprise bags there are on Too Good To Go, the grocery ones are the most varied. As grocery shops sell a bit of absolutely every food stuff you can think of, you truly have no idea what you’re going to get.
If you keep an eye out, some grocers split their bag into different options, we’ve seen: baked goods, grocery, fruit and/or veg, and deli. Scouting out a more specific bag will give you a better idea about what you’ll recieve, but even then, you never truly know.
If you compare value for money in the grocery surprise bags to all the other sections in our Too Good To Go review, you’ll find the greatest fluctuations.
Nisa Local
- Bag price: £4
- Claimed bag value: £12
- Actual bag value: £21.15
This surprise bag cost us £4 and on Too Good To Go, its value listed as £12. In the bag, we got two packs of spam (RRP 2 for £6), a 1.4kg chicken (£5.95), and two packs of Co-op strawberry cheesecake desserts (£1.60 each). The chicken went straight in the freezer, the family finished the desserts within the day, and a spam-loving family member took the processed meat packs off our hands.
In another surprise bag from Nisa, we received five packets of salt beef. After a bit of thinking “what on earth are we going to do with these?!”, we decided on a selection of different dinners, replacing our usual protein choice with salt beef:
Spar
- Bag price: £3.33
- Claimed bag value: £10
- Actual bag value: ~ £9
Our Spar surprise bag cost £3.33 and the bag value was given as £10. Pickup was simple, and in the bag we received a Franco Manca spiced meatball and onion sourdough pizza, a honey & mustard chicken pasta ready meal, and a Dairy Milk flake chocolate yoghurt. This bag made a great dinner-for-one, and saved us around six quid.
A few weeks later, we reserved a second surprise bag from the same Spar. It was a Friday in July after a heatwave: these factors will all play a part in the store’s leftovers. For example, people want BBQ food or cold, refreshing foods, not hot soups or curries. Our second bag also cost £3.33, and in this one, we recieved:
- Takeaway Cheese & Garlic doughballs (we served these as a side at our family pizza night)
- A pack of eight strawberry Actimels
- A Chicken Jalfrezi ready meal
Co-op
- Bag price: £3.30
- Claimed bag value: £10
- Actual bag value: £11
This bag was a sticky one: the actual price might’ve been £11, however, every item we received had already been yellow stickered. If we went hunting for yellow stickers, then we’d of paid less for the items individually than the price of the surprise bag.
We got three sandwiches and a punnet of raspberries.
Sweet treats and baked goods surprise bags
In this last section of our Too Good To Go review, we list all of the surprise bags we’ve tried from sweet and chocolate shops, bakeries, and any surprise bag specifically listed as the baked goods option. Costa Coffee, for example, offers a surprise bag and a sweet & pastry bag – in this section, you’ll find the latter.
Love Cocoa
- Bag value: £4.99
- Claimed bag value: £15
- Actual bag value: £54.70
The Love Cocoa “Chocolate Surprise” Too Good To Go bag is only the second bag we’ve ever been able to choose what goes in it.
After swiping our code, we got to choose four chocolate bars (usually £4.95 each), a candle (£19.95 at full price), and a box of truffles (£14.95). It doesn’t take a genius to work out that this bag was great value.
At the same time, we also tried out their “Coffee and Chocolate Slabs Pouch” bag for £4.99. The store didn’t have any chocolate slabs left, so we got to pick out a chocolate bar instead. Just for the chocolate bar alone we were quids in.
A picture of the box contents (the store gave us a fancy gift box to carry it home in) in the family group chat was met with instant “I’ll take that one” messages. Both bags were bargains if you ask us. And as value goes, it’s the best we’ve ever seen.
Cocoba chocolate shop, Bluewater
- Bag price: £6.70
- Claimed bag value: £20
- Actual bag value: £20.55
When we added up the individual cost of the items in the bag, it was bang on the vendor’s claimed value, totalling £20.55.
So what did we get?
- A hot chocolate spoon with marshmallows
- 2x bags of toffee caramel pieces
- A ghost chocolate lollipop
- A little Easter bunny hot chocolate bombe
We made two very silky hot chocolates that night. We also used the toffee caramel pieces to decorate our no bake Twix cheesecake.
Coffee Station
- Bag price: £3.49
- Claimed bag value: £12
- Actual bag value: £17.20
Of all the Too Good To Go surprise bags we’ve picked up so far, the one from Coffee Station we were most impressed with. In total we received eight pastries: two chocolate croissants, two almond croissants, three raisin swirls, and a custard crown. These were all shared out among family and partners.
To see if such a good bag was a one off, we reserved another one a week later. Our 2nd bag was equally good value: four chocolate croissants, two custard crowns, and two raisin swirls.
Muffin Break
- Bag price: £4.99
- Claimed bag value: £14.99
- Actual bag value: £15
In our Too Good To Go bag from Muffin Break, we received four items. It’s hard for me to believe four items from a bakery chain would cost anywhere near the £15 the vendor claimed the food in the bag to be worth. However, looking at Muffin Break’s menu and seeing muffins and cruffins and scones ranging between £3.60 and £3.90, it was bang on.
What four items did we get? Two muffins (raspberry & white choc, cinnamon), a caramel biscuit cruffin, and a cheese scone. Did we eat all of them? Yes. Were they nice? Also yes.
Notes Coffee Roasters & Bar
- Bag price: £5
- Claimed bag value: £15
- Actual bag value: £16.80
The Notes Coffee Roasters & Bar Too Good To Go bag came with a handwritten message on the bag telling me to have a “lovely weekend”. I thought that was a nice touch. [Update: I did, in fact, have a lovely weekend.]
Alongside the bag, I also got a small coffee of my choosing and a loyalty card, which, after buying nine coffees at any of their locations would earn me a free coffee. Again, nice touches that made me feel Notes values Too Good To Go users.
With my coffee, I received a plain pastry swirl, a muffin, and a slice of banana bread.
Three Darlings, Chelsea
- Bag price: £3.99
- Claimed bag value: £12
- Actual bag value: ~ £16
In Sloane Square, there’s a bunch of high end shops, cafes, and restaurants. It’s Chelsea. We decided to try something fancy and reserved a Too Good To Go surprise bag from Three Darlings.
Listed as a baked goods bag, we received two cookies, a pain au chocolat (£5) , and pain Suisse (it looked like a mini loaf) filled with jam and cream (£5.50). Considering we’re budget people at Simple & Homely, the quality of these pastries really stood out.
We were happy with this bag, and if we ever won more than a fiver on the Lotto, we’d book at table for lunch.
Millie’s Cookies
- Bag cost: £4.19
- Claimed bag value: £12.60
- Actual bag value: £16.99
After a day shopping at Lakeside, we decided to try out the Millie’s Cookies Too Good To Go bag. And we’re glad we did. Upon first picking up the paper bag carrying our biscuit box, the first reaction was “Blimey! That’s weighty”. Given there were 24 cookies in the box, that first impression wasn’t wrong.
While the box lacked in variety, we had no complaints about the box’s value. We didn’t count the exact number of each white choc chip and double choc chip cookie we received (we began munching before after counting the overall total), but we weren’t massively fussed: we like both equally.
Krispy Kreme
- Bag cost: £4.65
- Claimed bag value: £13.95
- Actual bag value: £14.95
We got six doughnuts for £4.65. Given a box of six usually costs £14.95, we’re counting this Too Good To Go surprise bag as a great saving. And of course, you can never really go wrong with Krispy Kreme doughnuts, no matter what flavours and toppings you get.
Our second Krispy Kreme cost £5.30. This bag was from Victoria in London, so it’s hardly surprising that, even for leftovers, the price is higher than the countryside. Unlike the first box, we got to choose our doughnuts this time – a very unusual thing indeed. Of all the surprise bags we’ve tried, this is the first time we’ve ever got a choice.
