Too Good To Go, Olio and Yellow Stickers: How Food Waste Apps Cut Your Grocery Bill in 2026

UK food prices are still running well above their pre-2022 levels, and every pound saved at the checkout matters. While cutting your grocery bill can feel like a full-time job, one category of savings tool is genuinely underused: surplus-food apps and supermarket markdown shopping. Used consistently, they can knock £20–£60 off your monthly food spend for almost no effort.

This guide covers the three main routes — Too Good To Go Surprise Bags, Olio’s free food-sharing network, and yellow sticker hunting at your supermarket — plus the Karma app and how to layer everything on top of loyalty-card savings for a compounding effect.

What are food waste apps?

Every day, UK businesses throw away huge quantities of perfectly edible food — bread baked that morning, chilled meals with tomorrow’s use-by date, fruit and veg that won’t last another 24 hours on the shelf. Food waste apps connect those businesses with hungry consumers willing to collect it at a fraction of the price. The food is legal, safe, and often better quality than the name “surplus” implies.

There are also community sharing platforms — apps where neighbours give away food they won’t eat before it spoils, completely free of charge. Together these tools represent a genuine, practical route to lower grocery bills, particularly if you live in or near a town or city.

Too Good To Go: Surprise Bags explained

Too Good To Go is the biggest food waste marketplace in the UK. The free app (iOS and Android) lists “Surprise Bags” from restaurants, cafes, bakeries, and supermarkets near you. You browse, reserve, pay in-app, and collect during a set pickup window — typically a 30-to-60-minute slot near the end of trading.

The headline figure is striking: bags are priced at roughly one-third of their retail value. In practice, that means a £3–£4 bag typically contains food worth £10–£20 at normal prices. Real-world tests bear this out: a Greggs Surprise Bag costing £3.15 has been found to contain items worth approximately £19.45 at retail — more than six times the purchase price. A Morrisons bag at £3.09 has returned groceries worth around £19.35 in store-price terms.

Partners in the UK include Greggs, Aldi, Morrisons, M&S, Costa, Leon, Tortilla, and thousands of independent cafes and bakeries. Greggs alone has sold more than 6 million Surprise Bags since joining the platform (as of April 2026).

How to get the most from Too Good To Go

• Download the app and enable location, then use the map to see nearby partners.
• Add your favourite stores to “Favourites” to get a notification the moment they list a bag.
• Check availability roughly 15 minutes after a collection window closes — unsold bags sometimes reappear.
• Read in-app ratings before reserving; a 4.5-star bakery is likely to give you more than a 2-star restaurant.
• If you can’t use everything immediately, freeze suitable items on collection day.

The one catch is the name: it is a Surprise Bag. You do not choose the contents. Some days you will land a haul of fresh pastries and chilled ready meals; other days you may get items you are less sure how to use. Flexibility in the kitchen pays off.

Olio: genuinely free food from your neighbours and local stores

Olio is a community sharing app and it costs nothing to use. The basic model is simple: people photograph food they will not eat before it spoils and list it on the app; nearby users request it and arrange a doorstep collection. It works for unopened and opened food alike, provided it is clearly described and safe to eat.

The more impactful route for regular savings is through Food Waste Heroes: trained volunteers who collect unsold end-of-day stock from retail partners — including Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Iceland, Costa, and Pret — and list it on the app for free local pickup. Over 100,000 Food Waste Hero volunteers operate globally, and in early 2026 Olio was running more than 60,000 “Save Me Collections” per month, roughly half of which are successfully claimed.

The numbers are striking: Olio has facilitated the sharing of more than 140 million meals globally and counts over 9 million users. In an April 2026 case study, OurCoop reported saving 5.4 million grocery items from waste over two years via its Olio partnership alone.

Olio’s own survey figures show that 84% of users say the app has improved their financial wellbeing. Availability varies: in busy urban areas you may see dozens of fresh listings daily; in rural areas the app is less active, though personal listings from neighbours still work anywhere.

Olio also launched a partnership with Gander in 2026, adding a yellow-sticker section directly inside the Olio app, showing real-time supermarket reductions from nearby Nisa, Co-op, and Morrisons Daily stores.

Yellow sticker shopping: the best times at every major supermarket

Supermarket yellow sticker (reduced to clear) shopping is the oldest form of food waste saving and still one of the most valuable. The trick is timing. Staff only mark things down when they have to — understand the pattern at your local store and you can walk in at exactly the right moment.

According to Which? and community sources, here is what to expect at each major chain:

• Tesco: No fixed nationwide schedule — reductions are at store-manager discretion. Minor reductions appear in the afternoon; the deepest discounts (50%+) tend to come in the evening, approximately 30–45 minutes before closing. On Sundays (shorter hours) go even earlier.
• Sainsbury’s: First reductions around midday at roughly 25% off; best discounts (up to 75%) between 5pm and 8pm. Fresh meat and fish are often reduced in multiple rounds.
• Asda: One of the few chains to reduce early — look for “Whoops” stickers on fruit and veg from around 10am. A second, deeper reduction wave arrives after 7pm.
• Morrisons: Fruit and veg from around 10am; bakery by lunchtime; meat and fish by mid-afternoon. Best single-visit time is after 5pm for the biggest reductions. Morrisons also partners with Too Good To Go — check the app around 6pm for Magic Boxes.
• Waitrose: Reductions from 6pm onwards, continuing until about 30 minutes before closing. Smaller branches often offer better markdowns than large stores.
• Aldi: Uses red stickers rather than yellow. Items on their last day before the use-by date receive an additional 75% off sticker on top of the standard 30% reduction. Reductions are often applied before the store opens at 8am — no need to visit late.
• Lidl: Orange sticker reductions from opening, with larger markdowns from around 3pm. Fixed-price meat packs (e.g. 90p) and fruit and veg crates appear near the tills before lunchtime.
• M&S: 20–30% reductions during the day; the deepest discounts come in the final hour before closing (most stores close at 8–9pm), with items sometimes dropping to 10p in the last 30 minutes.

A general rule: reductions happen in three rough waves — morning (10–30% off), mid-afternoon (30–50% off), and evening (50%+). Bank holidays and the days before Christmas and New Year are especially productive, as stores clear perishables aggressively. Most reduced items can be frozen on the day of purchase to extend their life significantly.

Karma and other apps worth knowing about

Karma works on a similar principle to Too Good To Go but with one key difference: you see and choose exactly which items you are buying, rather than receiving a surprise selection. Every listing is discounted by at least 50%. Which? reviewed Karma alongside Too Good To Go and Olio and noted it offers more transparency for shoppers who prefer to know what they are getting.

The limitation is availability. Karma is largely a London app. Outside the capital, partner choices are very limited for now — so for most UK readers, it is a useful secondary option rather than a primary tool.

A few other tools worth a mention:

• Kitche — a free UK app that tracks what is in your fridge and suggests recipes to use food before it spoils. Does not source external food, but helps you waste less of what you already have.
• Oddbox — a subscription veg-box service delivering cosmetically imperfect produce rescued from farms, typically at a discount versus supermarket equivalents.
• FoodCloud — connects supermarkets directly with local charities rather than individual consumers, so not a personal savings tool, but a good one to be aware of if you volunteer or donate.

How the apps compare at a glance

Realistic monthly savings: what to expect

These apps work best when you treat them as a regular habit rather than a one-off experiment. Here is a realistic picture based on community feedback and the maths of typical bag pricing:

• Light use (one Too Good To Go bag per fortnight + occasional Olio claims): roughly £15–£25 per month saved versus buying those items at full price.
• Moderate use (one Too Good To Go bag per week + yellow sticker shop once a week + Olio): roughly £35–£60 per month.
• Active use (multiple bags per week across different partners, regular yellow sticker hunting, active on Olio): some households report saving well over £80 per month, particularly in urban areas with a large range of partners.

These figures represent the difference between what you pay through the apps and what the same food would cost at full price — not a straight cash transfer into your pocket. But the net effect on your monthly grocery spend is real. See our guide to UK food prices in 2026 for context on how much the typical household is spending.

Combining food waste apps with loyalty schemes

The biggest savings come from layering strategies. Food waste apps and supermarket loyalty cards are not either-or choices — they work in the same basket.

When you collect a yellow sticker haul at Tesco, you still scan your Clubcard at the till. You earn points and benefit from any Clubcard Prices on items you pick up alongside the reduced ones. The same applies at Sainsbury’s with Nectar. Some loyalty scheme offers are specifically targeted at the kind of quick, opportunistic shop that yellow sticker hunting involves.

A family spending £100–£150 a week at Tesco typically saves £400–£780 a year through Clubcard Prices alone. A single adult at £40–£60 per week can expect around £150–£300 in annual loyalty savings. Stack that with regular Too Good To Go use (an additional estimated £180–£720 a year depending on frequency) and you are looking at genuinely significant annual totals. You can explore more ways to combine these strategies in our grocery cashback apps guide.

Food safety basics

A quick but important note. Food from surplus apps is legal and safe when handled correctly, but you do need to apply common sense:

• Best before vs use by: “Best before” is about quality, not safety — food past its best-before date is still safe to eat and assess by look, smell, and taste. “Use by” is a safety date — do not eat food past this date unless it has been frozen before then.
• Freeze on collection day: If you collect chilled items from a Too Good To Go bag and cannot use them that day, freeze them immediately when you get home. Most meat, fish, and bakery items freeze well.
• Check Olio listings carefully: The app asks listers to describe the condition and date accurately. If a listing looks vague, it is fine to ask the lister a question before requesting.
• Reheat thoroughly: Any hot food collected from a surplus bag — soups, curries, pies — should be piping hot all the way through before eating.

Frequently asked questions

Is Too Good To Go free to download and use?

Yes. The app is free to download on iOS and Android and there is no subscription fee. You pay only for the bags you reserve, typically £2.99–£4.99 depending on the partner. Bags are paid for in-app at the point of reservation using a debit or credit card.

What if I collect a Too Good To Go bag and it contains something I can’t eat?

This is the main limitation of the Surprise Bag model. You are not guaranteed specific items, and the app’s terms of service reflect this. If you have a serious allergy, contact the partner directly before reserving — many bakeries and cafes can tell you what allergens are likely to be present. For dietary restrictions (e.g. vegetarian or halal), filter by partner type and read in-app reviews, which often describe typical bag contents. Items you cannot use can be listed on Olio for a neighbour to claim.

How does Olio make money if the app is free?

Olio earns revenue through business partnerships — charging retailers and food companies for its redistribution service — and through an optional paid “Olio Supporter” subscription that gives early access to listings and other perks. The free tier gives you full access to all food listings; the paid tier is genuinely optional. Olio also earns from corporate sustainability partnerships as brands pay to reduce their reported food waste figures.

Can I use these apps if I live in a rural area?

Too Good To Go has broad UK coverage including many market towns and smaller cities — check the app map to see what is available near you. Olio’s Food Waste Hero programme tends to be most active in urban areas, though personal listings from neighbours work anywhere. Yellow sticker shopping at your local supermarket works regardless of where you live and is arguably the most consistently rewarding strategy for rural households. Karma is effectively London-only at present.

Do food waste app savings count as income for tax or benefits purposes?

No. Buying discounted food or receiving free food via a sharing app is personal consumption, not income. It will not affect your tax position or any means-tested benefits. The money you save is simply money you do not spend on groceries — it has no reportable value for HMRC or benefits purposes.

This article is for general information purposes only. App features, pricing, and partner availability may have changed since publication. Always check current app terms and supermarket policies before relying on any specific detail. Prices and savings figures quoted reflect publicly reported examples as of June 2026 and will vary by location and partner.