Too Good To Go: Guide + Tips + Experiences after 3 years

When I started studying at university, I realized that eating food is essential for survival. Considering I never cooked before, plus the fact that there was no canteen or a similar place with subsidized meals, figuring out how to get meals for a good price was quite important. While I did learn to cook a few basic meals, cooking took a lot of time and I did not particularly enjoy it.

I found out about Too Good To Go (TGTG) a few weeks later and it became my main source of food for several months. Later, I tried other sources of food, particularly with more focus on health, which included meal replacements (Huel, Jimmy Joy) and frozen food delivery (Field Doctor). I still continued using TGTG from time to time.

Over the past 3 years, I ate a total of about 500 "food items" from over 200 TGTG orders. Mostly in the UK, but in a few other countries as well. At the time of writing, TGTG is available in western and central Europe, the US and Canada, and Australia.

How to use Too Good To Go

Ordering a TGTG bag^[1] is quite easy. You open the app^[2], find your area on the map, and add filters, if needed. Then you tap on a result, and you can see more details: collection date and time window, average rating of the bag, the description, and the price. You won't get to know the exact items that will be in the bag (that's the point), but you can get a vague idea based on the type of restaurant/store and the description of the bag.

Once you click Reserve and select the payment method, the specified number of bags will be held for you until you finish the payment, but only up to 5 minutes. Once it's been paid, you can see it in your orders in the app. You also get a confirmation email.

After that, if you're not reserving the TGTG bag right in the store^[3], it's useful to have a reminder to not forget about it. You can enable Calendar reminders in the app settings, which will add the collection window as an event to your calendar. There's also an option for Push reminders. The last time I tried it, order reminders and promotions were sent in the same notification channel, so I disabled notifications completely. The most reliable way for me is to create an alarm on my phone for some time before the collection starts, which makes it hard to miss.

Picking up a TGTG bag

To pick up a TGTG bag, arrive at the store within the collection window. It usually spans a few hours, but can be as short as 10 or 15 minutes. Most of the time, TGTG bags can be collected up to 15 minutes before the start of the collection window (that's when the "swipe to collect" becomes enabled in the app).^[4]

Then, you let the staff know that you have a TGTG order. They may direct you elsewhere, such as in the case of a hotel reception, to the hotel restaurant, or in a large cafe, to a different counter/till. Once asked, you confirm the collection by swiping a slider within the app.^{[5] [6]}

Most of the time, the TGTG bag is packaged in advance. However, sometimes, the staff selects the items just in time, based on current availability.^[7]

Eating the food from the TGTG bag

If the TGTG bag contains edible items (i.e., it's not groceries or pet food), eating it right at the store is usually most convenient, depending on the type of the store/restaurant. For places like university cafes, it's often expected that you eat it there, especially if they offer you metal cutlery. For places like big cafe chains, usually no one minds, but this may depend on the staff or the time of day. For places like fancy restaurants, it's almost guaranteed that they won't like the idea of you eating from a discounted take-out bag in there.

Either way, it's best to either eat the contents within a few hours, or freeze it, if feasible. This is especially the case as the food expires the same day or the next day. If the food seems like it may have gone bad (or is about to), it's absolutely best to throw it away. Food poisoning is worse than food waste - I only realized that after the fact!

Strategy for choosing a good TGTG bag

These are the main categories when looking for TGTG bags:

• meals
• bread & pastries
• groceries
• other

I find that bags in the meals category provide the best value for money. Bread & pastries is often cakes or desserts, which I don't like. Groceries can be a good value, but it varies a lot based on the store. Other can be, for example, flowers/plants or pet food.

When it comes to the average rating, I don't find TGTG bags with a rating under 4* worth trying. 4.2* is okay - not bad but not exceptional either. 4.5* means usually very good and worth trying. 4.8* is rare, but almost always a great deal.

In central London, for example, there are over a thousand different TGTG bags to choose from. After filtering by location, category, and rating, there may be a dozen results nearby. However, the best ones have usually already been reserved within minutes of becoming available. It's not surprising that there's competition for the best TGTG bags.

There's no reliable and easy way to get notified once a TGTG bag is available for reservation. However, a TGTG bag for the next day often becomes available around the same time each day. Also, there is a self-hosted tool to send a message or a webhook when the availability of a given TGTG bag changes.^[8]

The day of the week also plays a role. For example, places that are closed during weekends tend to have more food to give away on Fridays, as it will also include items that expire on Saturday and Sunday.^[9]

You can cancel a reservation up to 2 hours before the start of the collection time for a full refund. Alternatively, you can let someone else pick up the TGTG bag by sending them a link, which they open in the app and collect it the same way.

Fighting food waste?

Apart from getting cheaper food, the major selling point of TGTG is helping to prevent food waste from happening. While this is great in theory, I find that the reality varies from store to store. For some locations, especially grocery stores or cafes selling packaged food with expiration dates, this works well, considering the food would actually be thrown out.

However, some stores, especially restaurants, treat TGTG primarily as another sales channel. This means they order/cook additional food to handle TGTG orders, mostly offsetting the benefit of using TGTG to prevent food waste.^[10] For stores that offer the same items per TGTG bag, and make the same amount of TGTG bags available for the next day, each day, it's difficult to see how it's helpful for preventing food waste in such cases.

Out of all my orders, only 2.5% of TGTG bags were cancelled as they "didn't have enough surplus food available". This is considerably lower than I would expect. Overall, I think the impact on saving food really depends on the type of the store.

Food exploration

Another benefit of TGTG is that it lets you try various types of food and cuisines that you may not have tried otherwise, eliminating decision fatigue once you choose a TGTG bag. Exploring random restaurants and cafes can be a fun activity, or even a fun challenge when the store isn't even on Google Maps and it takes quite a bit of problem solving to locate it - unless you're running late.

Ensuring that food sticks to your dietary requirements may be complicated, considering the food in the TGTG bag is supposed to be random. At least, the app lets you filter for vegetarian and vegan options. Stores that offer several types of TGTG bags often have separate bags labeled "meat" and "vegan". For other dietary restrictions, staff at the store often ask if you have any allergies. However, saying so may result in less food, which you may have wanted to give to someone else.

Too Good To Go addiction

Ordering various TGTG bags means in most cases you get mediocre quality and amount of food, but occasionally (but not too often) lots of good food. This is the same psychological principle of intermittent reinforcement - the reason slot machines and social media apps are addictive. Calling it an addiction may be hyperbole unless there are long-term negative consequences. However, the effects may be harder to notice due to the nature of the app.

Scarcity is perhaps the most obvious effect - there's a limited number of TGTG bags, and they're available on a first-come, first-served basis. More than once have I hesitated for a moment whether to reserve a TGTG bag, and when I did, it was not available anymore as someone else had just reserved it. This further reinforces the fear of missing out, encouraging users to act quickly.^[11]

While saving food from going to waste is a legitimate reason for using the app, it is also a powerful halo effect, meaning this makes it harder to notice any negative effects.^[12] I've noticed that I've often gone out of my way to pick up an interesting TGTG bag, not taking into consideration the time it takes to get to the store and how healthy the meal is. Even though it did contribute to the exploration of different foods and stores, in hindsight, sometimes the total cost (energy/time/money) greatly outweighed the value of getting a TGTG bag.

Is Too Good To Go worth it?

Ultimately, using TGTG can be an effective way to save money, especially if you find good locations near you and don't have strict dietary requirements.

pros

• get food for cheap
• help prevent food from going to waste
• get food you may not have tried otherwise
• can be a fun activity

cons

• dietary restrictions make it more difficult
• preventing food waste is not guaranteed
• get food you may not have tried otherwise (if it's not healthy)
• can become addictive