Oldham: I survived on 'Too Good to Go' food for a whole week

I stepped up to try the 'Too Good to Go challenge' and if you don't know what that is, that's because I made it up.

Too Good To Go is an app which connects customers to their local shops, supermarkets, cafes and anywhere that sells food to give them the option of buying a surprise goodie bag of produce at an impressively discounted price.

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The Aldi, Morrisons and Starbucks haul altogether (Image: Newsquest, Olivia Bridge)

The initiative has been created in a bid to curb food waste and, intrigued by some of the mystery bags other lucky shoppers have got their hands on, like 24 Greggs sausage rolls and 36 blocks of Aldi cheese, I set myself the task of trying to survive a whole weekend on surprise orders.

I wanted to beat the January blues and give my bank account a well-needed post-Christmas break.

The aim of the game was to submit a handful of orders to make up for three square meals a day - and make it through on nothing but Too Good To Go goodies from Friday to Sunday.

My mission was to check the quality and quantity of the food given to weigh up if it is value for money, or if the whole thing is really too good to be true.

Here's how it went.

The orders and money spent

Kicking off the challenge on Friday night, I stopped by the Starbucks on Bowling Street in Chadderton and for a measly £4 received a sausage sandwich, two chocolate caramel shortbreads and a berry crunch yoghurt pot.

The crate of Aldi goodness for just £3.30 (Image: Newsquest, Olivia Bridge)

Aldi on Ellen Street then gave me a whopping big crate of groceries for just £3.30 which included goat's cheese, eight bananas, a pomegranate, eight cheese and herb 'Metro' bread rolls, two coriander plants, two cheese and bacon crispbreads and two, admittedly, questionable-looking aubergines, as well as an awful lot of casserole veg.

I then departed with another £3.30 at Morrisons on Oldham Road in Failsworth for a comparatively modest-sized bag, though I felt I'd hit the jackpot with a big bag of posh Sensations crisps, two Cadbury dairy milk chocolate trifles, eight pieces of bacon, two steak bakes and a ham and cheese sandwich.

Most Too Good to Go shops compile their goodie bags of surplus food at the end of the day, so I was running around gone 8pm on Friday night for this haul, but this is also why I didn't start the challenge until Friday teatime.

Co-op's hot food goodie bag was decent, other than the sausage and cheese muffin, which was scary (Image: Newsquest, Olivia Bridge)

You also have to reserve your orders the night or possibly even a full day before so I put dibs on a further three bags to collect on Saturday.

Paying just £2 at Central Co-op in Shaw, I was given a 'breakfast hot food bag' with a giant sausage roll, a cheese and sausage muffin and a cheese and bacon turnover.

The lovely staff at Fozzy's Cafe on Drury Lane in Chadderton then gave me not one but two of the largest jacket potatoes with cheese and beans I've ever seen, a meat and potato pie, a cheese garlic wrap and a fresh baguette for just £4.

I had made a sixth order to Poundbakery, but I cancelled it. Looking at my crammed fridge, I realised my challenge was no longer about whether I could survive the weekend, but whether I could actually eat it all in the space of seven days.

This is what a real Friday night looks like (Image: Newsquest, Olivia Bridge)

A week of food for £17 - what I made

Friday night, I had the Starbucks sausage sarnie with an added slice of Morrisons bacon and used an old McDonald's ketchup packet lurking in my fridge, which felt like an extra win.

I then had a chocolate trifle for afters and the whole 'meal' did seem a bit strange for tea,  there was nothing wrong with it as the bread was still soft, the sausages and bacon fresh and the trifle hadn't curdled. Which is what you want really from a trifle.

Starting off Saturday with a Starbucks breakfast (Image: Newsquest, Olivia Bridge)

Saturday breakfast I went for the Starbucks berry crunch yoghurt, one of my several hundred bananas from Aldi and the Morrisons malt loaf slice, followed by the cheese and bacon turnover around midday and then tackled one of the mammoth jacket potatoes from Fozzy's for tea.

I also couldn't resist Fozzy's meat and potato pie as my Saturday midnight snack, which was by far the highlight of the whole experiment.

Sunday, I skipped breakfast but made a dent in my bursting fridge by eating the sausage and cheese muffin from Co-op followed by the second Fozzy's jacket and the final Dairy Milk trifle.

Fozzy's Cafe was my winner when it came to freshness, flavour and size (Image: Newsquest, Olivia Bridge)

Monday, it started getting weird. I had a banana with the Morrisons' ham and cheese sandwich for breakfast but then dinner turned out to be one of my favourite meals of the week: a goat's cheese, pomegranate and apple 'salad' topped with three slices of bacon and coriander and a 'metro' bread roll, though I confess to using up the last of a cucumber I already had before Too Good To Go came into my life.

I would never have made a goat's cheese and pomegranate salad before (Image: Newsquest, Olivia Bridge)

I also had a bowl of grapes and pineapple and later, mash potato, parsnips, carrots and a bacon and cheese crispbake followed by a Starbucks millonaire shortbread.

Tuesday, I had a banana for breakfast (with my own porridge oats), then a bacon and goats cheese bread roll with an apple and the same tea as the night before.

I had to have some oatmeal for breakfast to balance out the beige (Image: Newsquest, Olivia Bridge)

Wednesday, I skipped breakfast again but had a casserole for dinner which I had slow cooked using all the Aldi veg and spread out into five tupperwares. 

Tea was strange but satisfying - I had the giant sausage roll with half a tin of Aldi's essential baked beans and the posh crisps for dessert.

Thursday, I still haven't seen the backend of this goat's cheese but I finally bid farewell to one pack of Aldi's metro rolls by making a bacon and cheese butty for breakfast.

The making of my casserole which I spread over five meals (Image: Newsquest, Olivia Bridge)

I had a Morrisons steak bake at dinnertime and for tea, another casserole.

By Friday, it was all getting repetitive -  I had a banana, steak bake and casserole, and then I was free.

Steak bake and my bacon and goats cheese roll (Image: Newsquest, Olivia Bridge)

Final thoughts and verdict

My total came to £17 which Too Good To Go estimates would have put me back £49 had I picked the items from the shelves, meaning I saved £32. 

Stretching this out to roughly 15 meals, not including all the desserts and sweet treats I got, it averages out at around £1.13 per meal.

I had some great sweet treats (brew not included via Too Good To Go) (Image: Newsquest, Olivia Bridge)

My favourite orders were Aldi, for the lifetime supply of casserole veg, and Fozzy's for taste and volume. The jackets were incredibly large and I will die defending that pie as surely the best in Oldham.

The Co-op sausage and cheese muffin was arguably the worst one as even the air fryer couldn't save it. However, it does say on the label 'not for reheating', so I accept responsibility for the role I took in narrowly giving myself food poisoning. 

I was most chuffed with the crisps from Morrisons (Image: Newsquest, Olivia Bridge)

The ham and cheese sandwich from Morrisons also wasn't the best and the aubergines and pineapple slices from Aldi were a bit sad.

And while a lot of the food was mostly beige and carby, I definitely didn't starve, though I wouldn't recommend it as a regular diet.

But when there's "too much month left at the end of the money", particularly in this cost of living crisis, Too Good to Go is a lifesaver and one method I'll definitely be using again to see me through.

If you have a story, I cover all things Oldham from food reviews and local business news to music and events, pubs, education, crime, property, health, community concerns and much more. Please email me at Olivia.bridge@newsquest.co.uk or send me a message on Twitter @Livbridge with your news.