A SAVVY shopper has shown off a bumper Asda “yellow‑sticker” haul worth £39 for just £4 using a free food‑waste app.
Posted in a popular bargain‑hunting Facebook group, the picture shows a table covered in ready meals, roast potatoes, salad, and bread, with the familiar reduced-labels.
The secret wasn’t a glitch or a voucher.
It was a Too Good To Go Surprise Bag collected at the end of the day during an evening pickup window.
How the Too Good To Go trick works
Too Good To Go is a food‑waste marketplace. Supermarkets, cafés and restaurants list Surprise Bags filled with short‑dated stock they can’t sell at full price.
You don’t choose exact items, but you do get a heavily reduced mixed bag.
Follow these steps:
- Download Too Good To Go free on iOS or Android and create an account.
- Allow location access, then search for your nearest Asda or turn on “favourites” to get alerts when new bags drop.
- Reserve a Surprise Bag in the app and pay in advance.
- Head to the store in the stated pickup window, show your order code at the customer service desk or collection point, and take your haul home.
At Asda, Surprise Bags are typically around £4 and can include bakery bakes, deli bits, ready meals, and produce.
What’s inside varies by store and time of day. If you’re flexible, you can score serious value like the £39‑for‑£4 example above.
There is, of course, a chance you’ll be disappointed, as some of our testers found when using the app for a period of time.
Pro tips to maximise your haul
- Favourite your local stores and switch on notifications. Bags appear at different times, often late afternoon or evening, for next‑day pickups.
- Be on time. Collection windows are tight, and staff need to close down chilled counters promptly.
- Bring a sturdy bag. Surprise Bags can be heavy.
- Check use‑by dates and follow food‑safety guidance. Many cooked items freeze well; salads generally don’t. Always read the label.
Asda itself has rolled out Too Good To Go across nearly 1,000 locations, including Asda Supermarkets and Asda Express stores, and in‑store food spots such as LEON, Greggs, Sbarro and Subway also list Surprise Bags through the same app, so you can often bag more than one pickup in a single trip.
The scheme promises food for roughly a third of the usual price, with LEON’s new Surprise Bag advertised at £3.50 for more than £10.50 worth of treats.
Bargain hunters in Facebook groups report the best luck later in the evening, with one post citing an 8.30–9.30pm pickup window for an Asda bag and multiple meals.
Others say they combine Too Good To Go with freezer prep to stretch the savings across the week.
Similar money‑saving apps to try
- Olio: a community sharing app where households and local businesses give away surplus food for free. Listings change fast, so enable alerts for your area.
- Gander: shows real‑time yellow‑sticker reductions in participating supermarkets. You buy in-store at the reduced price shown in the app.
- Shopmium: cashback on branded groceries when you upload a receipt. Offers rotate weekly and can stack with supermarket deals.
- CheckoutSmart and GreenJinn: more receipt‑based cashback apps with supermarket‑specific offers.
- Karma: another surplus‑food marketplace similar to Too Good To Go in selected areas.
