4 ways to get a discount on your groceries and save 80%, including free food app
FAMILIES can reduce the cost of weekly shopping by preventing produce from being thrown away.
British supermarkets throw more than 230,000 tonnes of food into the bin every year, according to waste-reducing charity Wrap.
But you can get discounts of 80 percent or more by saving items that would otherwise be thrown away.
Rosie Taylor tries four ways to get groceries cheaply this week. . .
TOO GOOD TO GO APP
Head to the Too Good To Go app to pick up a “surprise bag” of leftovers from restaurants and stores for about 70 percent off — but it’s luck what you get.
An Aldi shipment, supposedly worth £10, cost me £3.30 but turned out to contain new food worth £18.14.
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There were two cartons of eggs (normally €1.35 each), which were not past their expiration date for another week.
It also included a chicken meal and turkey fillets (both normally £3.49) which I froze for later.
But I had to throw away deli meats and a spread with that day’s expiration date because I couldn’t eat them in time.
I also tried a Morrisons Too Good To Go bag but when I arrived to collect it at the stated time of 5.30pm there were no discounted products available so a cashier made me a bag.
I paid £3.09 for £10.65 worth of dated produce, including a salad (normally £1.50), some Jacob’s crackers (£1.30) and Chantenay carrots (£1.25),
Maddy Alexander-Grout, who runs the consumer app Mad About Money, says she normally has a positive experience with Morrisons on the discount app.
She recently got £45 worth of vegetables in her £3 bag.
“It’s a great way to get a lot of things at once for a low price,” she adds.
BEST FOR WHOLESALERS
SEVERAL UK websites are selling great value packaged food that is near or past its sell-by date.
Some have a minimum spend, including Approvedfood.co.uk, where it’s £22.50.
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Others, such as lowpricefoods.com and clearxl.co.uk, have no minimum spend, but you do pay a fixed postage amount for a box. So it’s only worth shopping if you have a lot to buy.
I paid £10.15 for a selection of branded food, plus £4.95 postage, on lowpricefoods.com.
There were some bargains, including a three-pack of tinned John West tuna steaks for £2.25 (normally £5 via Ocado).
But most other products were only slightly cheaper than buying them elsewhere.
Three packs of McVitie’s chocolate digests cost £2.50 via lowpricefoods, but cost £1 each in Poundland.
So you save less than 17 cents per package.
In total the goods I received would have cost £15.35 bought new from other retailers.
After I factored in shipping costs, I only saved 25 cents – not great considering some of the products were past their expiration dates.
If you are buying a large quantity of goods that you can use quickly, it may be worth using a short-term wholesaler, but for everyday shopping you are unlikely to make big savings.
YELLOW STICKER OFFERS
WHEN products reach their sell-by or best-before dates, stores want to get rid of them quickly, so they lower prices based on the use of yellow stickers.
Fresh foods, such as meat or dairy, with an expiration date should be eaten before that date or you risk getting sick.
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But an expiration date tells you when an item will be at its optimal quality; you can use your judgment as to whether it is safe to eat.
Al Baker, from money-saving blog thepennypincher.co.uk, applied yellow sticker discounts when he worked in Morrisons.
He advises: “Ask an employee about reduction times as these can vary greatly from store to store.”
At my local Morrisons I bought bags of carrots for 10p each (down from 50p), a vegetable casserole mix for 38p (down from £1.49) and a salad for just 10p, reduced from 99p.
I also bought a six pack of sausage rolls which were ‘used up’ that day for 60 cents. They usually cost €2.
At my nearest Asda, most of the prices hadn’t dropped when I arrived at 8pm, but I still managed to pack a treat.
I found a few yellow stickers in the bakery section where I picked up chocolate donuts (normally £1.15), crumpets (normally £1.25) and six white buns (normally £1.35) for 10p each.
FREE FOOD APP
The Olio app allows users to give away unwanted food and other items.
Since 2020, it has partnered with Tesco so that unsold fresh produce is collected by Olio volunteers and passed on to the community via the app – all for free.
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Alison* is part of a group of volunteers collecting leftover stock from nearby Tesco Express stores to distribute.
I messaged her via an Olio app with a mention for Tesco pastries.
When I arrived outside her house, I was surprised to find that she had a carrier bag full of 16 pastries, worth £17.60 new, as well as a bunch of slightly bruised bananas, worth 80p.
I then went to another Olio helper’s house a few miles away.
They had left me a box on their doorstep containing a mix of leftover Tesco items.
The shipment included some baked goods that I can freeze, such as scones and bread, as well as expired fruit and vegetables that could not be sold because the packaging was torn.
Fresh this would all be worth £8.94.
I couldn’t believe how much you can get for free, although it would be hard to rely on Olio for groceries because you never know what is available each day.
*Name has been changed