I tried an Aldi Too Good To Go bag and it was underwhelming

Too Good To Go exists as a way to fight food waste, with many businesses offering bags of unsold products near their expiry date at a discounted price.

Plenty of big brands use the service, ranging from supermarkets such as Morrisons to the likes of Greggs, Starbucks and even Holiday Inn.

On its website, it says: "Food waste is a big problem, and we can be a solution. Too Good To Go is the app that lets you rescue unsold food from an untimely fate at your favourite spots."

I had previously tried a Too Good To Go bag from Morrisons and was very impressed by the amount of food you received for a price of £3.09.

As I had seen Aldi on the app as well I was curious to see how their effort compared.

Being a bit more familiar with when bags become available to book on the app, I was able to easily purchase an Aldi Too Good To Go bag for a cost of £3.30.

This was set for a collection time between 9pm and 9.25pm the evening after I had ordered it, so I headed down to my local Aldi to pick it up.

Unlike with Morrisons, there was no desk to go to in Aldi to collect the bag. Instead, I had to find a member of staff to scan my code and I was then directed to a basket of groceries left at the end of a closed checkout aisle.

What was also different to Morrisons was that you needed to bring your own bag to put the groceries in, instead of having one provided for you, but that wasn't an issue.

What I got in my Aldi Too Good To Go bag

The Aldi Too Good To Go bag costs £3.30 for around £10 worth of random groceries that are nearing their expiry date.

The items that came with my bag were:

The mix of items in the Aldi Too Good To Go bag (Image: Newsquest)

• Ashfields Ready To Eat British BBQ Chicken 100g/4 Pack (RRP: £1.49 per pack)
• Nature's Pick Sweetcorn 2 Pack (RRP: £1.39 per pack)
• Nature's Pick Asparagus Spears 250g (RRP: £1.99 per pack)
• Nature's Pick Strawberries 227g x 2 (RRP: £1.49 per pack)
• Nature's Pick British Pea Shoot Salad 80g x2 (RRP: 69p per pack)
• Nature's Pick Leeks 500g (RRP: £1.39 per pack)
• Nature's Pick Mixed Pepper Stir Fry 320g (RRP: 85p per pack)

Overall, it was decent value, with the cost of the bag being £11.47 in usual circumstances.

Whilst the items together wouldn't really help in creating a full meal, individually they could quite easily help with adding to other dishes.

The leeks were used to make soup (Image: Newsquest)

However, the catch with a few of them was that they expired the day I collected them, and because you're picking up the bag so late that could potentially lead to a few issues.

Also what became apparent quite quickly was the Mixed Pepper Stir Fry wasn't going to be good to eat.

You could see through the bag that it was quite slimy and carrying a fair bit of liquid. Sadly it was only really good enough to compost.

The stir fry was unfortunately not good to eat (Image: Newsquest)

The same could be said for the sweetcorn as once the bag was opened it was slightly ragged so that couldn't be used either.

Obviously, the risk of buying products so close to their expiry date means this is going to happen sometimes, but because I was able to use everything Morrisons provided in their Too Good To Go bag I was hopeful it would be the same with Aldi.

Thankfully, everything else was able to be utilised in some way with the strawberries in particular being especially tasty.

The strawberries were delicious (Image: Newsquest)

Also for my lunch the day after I collected, I was able to use the BBQ chicken slices and pea shoot salad in a sandwich together.

Recommended reading:

• I tried a Morrisons Too Good To Go bag and I was shocked by the amount of food
• I tried a Greggs Too Good To Go bag and it’s a good job I’ve got a sweet tooth
• I ate everything from Lidl’s bakery for less than £14 - Every item ranked

Elsewhere, my family used up the other items, as I'm personally not a fan of either leeks or asparagus, which went into soups.

Overall, despite some disappointments with not being able to eat certain items, I'd still argue it would be worth trying out Aldi's Too Good To Go service.

For the most part, you'll get a nice variety of items that can be incorporated in lots of different dishes for a fraction of the usual price.