Too Good To Go has finally arrived in Australia! This social impact company aims to reduce food waste by connecting businesses with surplus food with customers. The food comes in the form of a "surprise bag" and allows people to rescue food that would ordinarily be discarded. The food is discounted and gives the business a revenue stream for this surplus food and gives customers a chance to buy an affordable meal. I tried around a dozen surprise bags and each turn I was surprised at the offering! Find out more in this post plus I'll share my top tips for using the app to get the best value and experience.
About Too Good To Go
I was chatting to a Canadian food journalist friend about Too Good To Go. "I often just pick a bag up at the end of the day," she said. I looked into it as soon as I got home and found that Too Good To Go had just arrived in Australia. It first started in Melbourne in late August 2024 and then launched in Sydney in November 2024. To access it, you need to download their app where you can search by location and filter for pick up times. All of the surprise bags are sold at 25-50% of the retail price.
The businesses range from cafes, takeaways and supermarkets to bakeries, the latter of which there are plenty as bread and baked goods are such a perishable product. As it is relatively new in Australia there isn't the amount of choice say in Europe or North America but it's in quite a few cities and countries (a friend lives in a regional UK town and didn't expect to see any TGTG businesses but found some). Too Good To Go started in 2015 in Copenhagen and is a certified B corp company (certified for meeting high standards of social and environmental performance, accountability, and transparency).
Trying Too Good To Go's Surprise Bags
Over the last few weeks we tried almost a dozen Too Good To Go bags and this is what we found.
1 - QE Foodstores, Paddington $9.99
My first Too Good To Go bag was on my way home from an event. We opened the app and saw that the QE Foodstore in Paddington had a surprise bag and it was available to pick up now. Within 7 minutes I was on my way there. Since it was so last minute, I waited while they prepared the bag for me and I was very excited to take my first bag home.
I opened it up and there was so much interesting stuff there. I loved the organic bread and the free range chicken thigh fillets. The chicken had a use by date of the following day so I cooked them then. The other items were tortillas that needed to be used by the following day so I put them in the freezer thinking, "That's a problem for another day". There was coconut yogurt that had a few days left on it as well as an apple and a head of lettuce that lasted for over a week.
A little note: Laura also bought a surprise bag from QE Darlinghurst and it wasn't such a success. The NZ salmon needed to be used on the day while her lettuce was wilted and the rocket and papaya was definitely on its way out and the Caesar salad should have really been thrown out as it was quite brown and wet at the bottom. Her dog ended up getting the salmon though so it wasn't a total loss and the salmon itself was worth $18. So sometimes you may end up with something that needs to be eaten on that night.
2 - Ho's Bakery and Cafe, Sydenham $6.99
This was my first time getting a bakery surprise bag and bakeries are one of the most represented categories on TGTG because bread doesn't last long. I've driven past Ho's so many times but never been in and when I arrived they gave me a huge flour sack full of product as well as a long French stick. When I got home I took it all out and it was 15 rolls (the kind you use for banh mi) as well as a sausage roll and a youtiou or Chinese donut. The donut was perfect as I had just made congee that day and I ate the sausage roll for lunch the following day.
We needed a lot of freezer space for all of the rolls which we bagged up but over the next 2-3 weeks we made our way through them. They made for great sandwiches and garlic bread with soup and Mr NQN loved them. I made some of them and half of the French stick into breadcrumbs for strudel. To soften the bread I took them out of the freezer the night before, sprayed them with water and left them to thaw.
3 - El Afraah Bakery, Kogarah $8.99
This was an exciting surprise bag because this bakery was one of the only 5 star rated places on TGTG. They also have a 3 hour collection time window between 7-10pm so we picked it up after dinner at Park Bong Sook in Hurstville and picked it up on our way home. The longer collection window is quite unusual as many places have a 30 minute collection window.
We had (accidentally) hit the veg box and when we arrived the guy said that he didn't have enough veg options but I told him that a meat one was fine. They made the box up for me and made a selection from the display. The store was still open for a few hours so they had a smallish selection of items. He was friendly and generous and I can see why they rate so highly.
All of the pastries were really tasty and I loved the variety. I especially liked the cheese halloumi pide, cheese and meat triangle and meat pizza and the sweet snail pastry was also good. Overall I think the value was close to $35-$40 (just from looking at the prices on uber eats which does add a dollar or two per item) so it was great value.
4 - Organic Bread Bar, Paddington $6.99
Organic Bread Bar's surprise bag was a rye French stick which was quite dry and hard as well as two rolls and a croissant. While the rolls and croissants tasted quite nice there wasn't quite the same excitement as the other bags but still it was decent for the price and I'm not complaining as I can always turn bread into breadcrumbs or bread and butter pudding.
5 - Manga Sushi, Woollahra $6.99
I had never heard of Manga Sushi before but they rate highly so we picked up some dinner from them. For $6.99 this was phenomenal value. We got a mixed bento box with aburi salmon nigiri, prawn nigiri and maki filled with prawns and chicken which is around $15.90. We also got a sizeable tuna salad which is worth $13.90. Both meals were tasty and fresh.
6 - Roll'd, Pacific Square $8.99
I also wanted to try some chains to see how they would differ and we tried out Roll'd who specialise in rice paper rolls. The pick up time is interesting for Roll'd as it is between 4-5pm and the store closes at 6pm. It makes me wonder if Roll'd do this as part of a branding exercise like a Groupon to introduce themselves to a new market rather than purely to excise waste from their system.
The store display is quite full when I arrive and when I show them the confirmation he makes up two boxes of rolls for me. There are 6 rolls in total which at $4.70 a roll is a value of $28.20 which is great for a spend of $8.99. There were a couple of rice paper rolls that I wouldn't have chosen but I really enjoyed the satay beef and the spicy chicken roll. They all came with sauce packets with nuoc mam, spicy hoi sin and hoi sin. Overall it was a tasty dinner which we paired with salad.
7 - Baker's Delight, Rockdale $9.99
Then we decided to try a bakery chain. There are a lot of locations for Baker's Delight and they all rate really well but we went for the Rockdale location because it rated the highest at 4.9. When I arrived my bag was already packed. They were super friendly and I have to say that all businesses are friendly when you're picking up a bag. The bag was heavy and I was so excited to take this home and open it up.
I was secretly hoping for my favourite item which is the apple and walnut scroll. And I squealed when I saw not just a scroll but a whole loaf of it and that is $12 on Uber Eats. There are also 2 pain au raisin scrolls, a whole loaf of sliced bread (around $6-$8) and a six pack of bacon and cheese savoury rolls that are also around $11.50. I froze the scrolls and bread and we had the bacon and cheese rolls with soup that night for dinner and some of the apple bread for dessert. This was phenomenal value.
8 - Leichhardt Espresso, Leichhardt $7.99
We decided to try Leichhardt Espresso cafe in Leichhardt as Mr NQN was in the area and it was rated 4.5. He picked up the bag and it contained 4 pastries. The pastries were cold so I got the impression that they were from the day before. There is one gigantic chocolate rugelach that weighs around 200g/7ozs, a blueberry Danish, a pain aux raisins and a pain au chocolat. I ended up freezing these straight away because there's only so much pastry one can eat (truthfully I was hoping for savoury because I'm a savoury gal but Mr NQN always hopes for sweet as he is a sweet tooth).
Despite them being cold I was really pleasantly surprised when I heated them up in the oven after a week in the freezer. The blueberry Danish was delicious and tasted of real butter. The chocolate rugelach had plenty of Nutella inside.
9 - It's Recess, Surry Hills $9.99
I had been wanting to try It's Recess in Taylor Square, Darlinghurst because I love salads and sandwiches and these looked really good. We arrived just two minutes before closing but they were friendly and my bag was waiting for me.
Inside was a delicious curried egg sandwich made with free range curried eggs, cress and celery on a nice sourdough bread which is normally $12.90. The "veg and grains salad" with quinoa, sweet potato, sun dried tomatoes, kale, rocket, zucchini, pickles, smashed avocado and pistachios was absolutely delicious and is normally $14.90. I loved having these for dinner.
10 - Honeymoon Cafe, Petersham $7.99
I love Portuguese custard tarts so I was hoping that Honeymoon Cafe would have some. The pick up time for Honeymoon Cafe was for an hour which I find easier than the half hour pick up times. The women here were so friendly and we had a brief chat. They told me that they also use TGTG to try out other businesses and then gave me an extra quiche which was still warm from the oven. The bag was heavy and I was so excited to open it up.
The mushroom quiche was delicious and there were also some cakes, which was very nice because often it's a lot of bread and pastry but not cakes. There's a big sweet, buttery croissant that heats up nicely in the oven as well as two apple crumble slices, a vanilla slice, a Chocolate Marquesa slice, two muesli style biscuits as well as two prized Portuguese custard tarts. My favourites were the custard tarts, quiche and Chocolate Marquesa cake and this place was also incredible value.
11- Hearthe, Stanmore $7.99
My final TGTG (for the time being at least) was ending on a high. Hearthe is the bakery by Christopher The, who started Black Star Pastry - he is the chef that invented the watermelon cake. I was really looking forward to this one and it did not disappoint. The first item was two long tartine sandwiches on a delicious, chewy rye bread. They were topped with salad leaves, carrot, bean dip, cheese and fresh herbs but this was so full of flavour and tasty. I'd definitely buy this again.
There is another tray with sweet pastries including an apricot and almond frangipane tart, an apple Danish tart and a croissant. Everything was such good quality and this was definitely a favourite surprise bag worth waiting for.
9 Tips for Using Too Good To Go
1 - At first I didn't find the TGTG app super easy to find things as they often suggest places out of your area far away or with low ratings. The best way to find things on the app is to go through all of the ones in your area and add the ones you like to your favourites. I stuck to shops with ratings higher than 4.2. Adding things to your favourites makes it much easier and this way it’s one button to know if there’s something available that I’ve already had a look at.
2 - Sometimes there is a place that doesn't have surprise bags often or only has 1 or 2 so they sell out quickly. If you really want to buy from them you can add a notification when their bags become available.
3 - I find the best strategy for choosing a place is to look for that sweet spot with a place that you like the sound of with a high rating. Within that, the larger bakery or food chains often have the fresher items because they have set processes in place for food so their cakes and breads are given away at the end of the day and never kept for more than a day. One of the smaller bakeries I went to (which wasn't a chain) wrapped their cakes in plastic wrap and kept them in the display overnight which is fine for cakes but that does mean that if you get it in a surprise bag that it will be a day or two old and need eating straight away.
4 - I opted in to add each purchase to my calendar. However I did find that there’s too many notifications so once you add it to the calendar I remove everything but the "time to leave" notification.
5 - If you can't pick it up, you can cancel it within 2 hours of pick up. Otherwise you do get charged for the bag. You can also transfer the pick up to a friend but they can't transfer it back to you.
6 - We often paired pick ups with a park visit for the dogs as the time to pick up the bags is different according to the business.
7 - One thing that always confused me was when to swipe the "collect" button. With supermarket click and collect you swipe when you're on your way but with TGTG you swipe when you are there and collect the bag. Some staff prefer to see you swipe the button in front of them.
8 - This really suits people that don't mind eating out of their normal hours. I know some people really like a hot meal for dinner whereas I am quite happy eating a sandwich or a salad for dinner.
9 - In the end, after buying all of these it gave me a total of the money that I saved ($170), the CO2e avoided which was the equivalent of 86 shower minutes, 96kwh, 5980 phone chargers or 100 cups of coffee. But I also had so much fun doing this as well. If anything it got a bit addictive!
So tell me Dear Reader, what do you think of this concept? Have you or would you use Too Good To Go?
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