I’ve apparently gotten much better at turning random daily posts into full blog entries. I share things as they happen, then later realize there’s enough material there for a proper write-up.
Too Good To Go is built around the idea of reducing food waste. Through the app, you can see participating businesses near you and reserve discounted surplus food that would otherwise go unsold by closing time. You pay in the app, then show up during a specified pickup window.
I first came across it about half a year earlier while looking into environmentally minded services. In Canada, though, a lot of apps like this run into the same problem: the country is huge, the population is spread out, and many services never build enough local density to feel useful. At the time, I downloaded several apps for secondhand goods and local businesses, and most of them had very few listings anywhere near me. Too Good To Go was the same story. There were barely any nearby stores, and none of them looked appealing, so I deleted it.
Then more recently I saw someone recommend it again, reinstalled it, and checked one more time. This time the result was completely different. Within three kilometers there were several options, some within walking distance and others reachable by direct bus. I filtered out the more inconvenient ones, picked up two orders, and then started wondering: could I use Too Good To Go to cover most of my meals, and how much would I actually save?
My rough estimate was that one pickup could last me about two days. I also still had some Costco meat in the fridge, so after some very approximate math I gave myself a challenge: try to get through a month on 100 CAD, relying mostly on Too Good To Go.
I had gone to Windsor at the end of November, and the service hadn’t expanded there, so the experiment only started once I got back to Toronto. The timeframe was 2021-12-04 to 2022-01-03.
What I picked up week by week
Week 1
I placed three Too Good To Go orders in the first week: one from a bakery, one from an Israeli fast food place, and then another bakery order. The three orders cost 23 CAD in total. I also bought 9 CAD worth of vegetables, bringing that week’s spending to 32 CAD.
First order: 6.99 CAD. The sesame bread in the bag at the upper left was basically a cousin of shaobing.
Second order: 7.99 CAD. The upper left was some kind of meatball; upper right was corn, carrot, and mashed potato; lower left was an enormous second variation on that baked flatbread situation; lower right was an Israeli thick soup whose name I genuinely cannot remember, about 750 ml.
Third order: 7.99 CAD. This bakery is usually a little pricey, but it’s close to where I live, and I’d already been there a few times for their salted egg yolk bun and coffee bun. Later I found out that this shop’s surprise bags usually sell out within a minute, so my getting one was pure luck.
Week 2
This week I only placed one Too Good To Go order, plus a Hello Fresh free box that someone kindly passed along to me. I only had to pay shipping, so the total for the week was 17 CAD.
Fourth order: 6.99 CAD.
I had specifically ordered a supermarket surprise bag that week, expecting maybe some fruit and vegetables. What I actually got was... not that. It left me staring into space for a while.
As for the Hello Fresh box, I chose five prepared meals for two people. The set included things like chicken chowder ramen, some kind of ground pork dish—which I ended up converting into stir-fried minced pork with green peppers because I didn’t really know how to make it as intended—and a beef dish of some sort.
Week 3
This was the truly terrifying week.
Two orders, 10 CAD total. The photos explain everything.
Fifth order: 4.99 CAD.
Sixth order: 4.99 CAD.
From week three onward, my daily menu looked like this:
- fried egg wrapped in sliced bread
- avocado on bread
- bread with whatever spreads I had
- bread rolls with seafood
And then some vegetables on the side: blanched asparagus, cold dressed spinach, water spinach with garlic, and similar things.
Week 4
No orders at all.
What the month actually cost
Over the course of the experiment, I placed six Too Good To Go orders in total, but I still had to supplement them with extra protein and vegetables.
One thing I noticed during the month was that the number of nearby participating stores seemed to be growing, though bakeries still dominated by far. If you’re willing to pick up food every day, it’s very easy to end up with a huge amount of bread. Personally, I just couldn’t eat that much of it.
After bakeries, the next most common options around me were Southeast Asian restaurants and Japanese or Korean places. A pizza shop had also appeared recently, though I didn’t get around to trying it. Chinese restaurants were relatively scarce overall, and fruit-and-vegetable options were rarer still. Grocery store surprise bags were especially unpredictable. The quality varied a lot, and it was hard to tell in advance whether I’d get things I could actually use, so I’d probably be more cautious with those in the future.
This mix obviously depends heavily on neighborhood demographics. I happen to live in an area with a fairly large East Asian, Southeast Asian, and Jewish population, and the restaurant selection reflects that.
<table> <thead> <tr> <th>Category</th> <th>Count</th> <th>Cost</th> </tr> </thead> <tbody> <tr> <td>Too Good To Go</td> <td>6</td> <td>49 CAD</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Hello Fresh free box</td> <td>1</td> <td>10 CAD</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Vegetables</td> <td>2</td> <td>18 CAD</td> </tr> <tr> <td>One dozen eggs</td> <td>1</td> <td>3.5 CAD</td> </tr> <tr> <td>One pack of chicken legs</td> <td>1</td> <td>5 CAD</td> </tr> <tr> <td>4L milk</td> <td>5</td> <td>23.5 CAD</td> </tr> </tbody> </table>Total: 109 CAD.
So yes, I missed the 100 CAD target slightly.
That wasn’t the full story, though, because I also used up food I already had in the fridge and freezer:
- one pack of seafood mix
- one large bag of Costco mini wontons
- six Costco lobster tails, one pack priced at 30 CAD
- one pack of Costco marinated short ribs, around 30 CAD
- six 650 ml Costco yogurts, around 20 CAD total
That existing stock was worth roughly another 100 CAD, which means my total food spending for the month was a bit over 200 CAD.
The year before, I had estimated my monthly food costs at around 400 to 600 CAD, so this was still a noticeable reduction.
Would I do it again?
I’ll probably keep using Too Good To Go regularly, just not under such strict self-imposed rules.
For me, one unexpected benefit is that it pushes me toward cuisines I normally wouldn’t try. I’ve lived in Canada for almost four years, but the core of my diet is still Chinese food. Even branching out to Japanese, Korean, or pizza already feels like a stretch sometimes. As for other cuisines, I rarely know what to order, and when I do go, I often have no idea what’s actually good.
This month at least got me into a small Israeli restaurant, which turned out to be pretty nice. And through the Hello Fresh recipes, I unexpectedly unlocked chowder—the kind of thick soup I’d had before in restaurants and really liked. I even tried making seafood chowder myself afterward and was extremely pleased with the result.