Marks & Spencer Food will sell bags of surplus bakery items for less than £4 as it expands its partnership with the food waste app Too Good To Go to stores across the country.
Shoppers will be able to buy the surprise bags, which contain three to four bakery items worth a minimum of £10.20, at the end of the day from across 350 M&S stores.
The bags cost £3.80 and can be ordered through the Too Good To Go app from Monday to Saturday, one hour before the store closes. Availability will be limited and will vary daily depending on the store.
The nationwide rollout follows a trial in a select number of M&S stores over the past few months.
M&S on the partnership
Lucinda Langton, head of sustainability at M&S Food, said Too Good To Go was a brilliant example of how the company was turning its commitment to reducing food waste into practical action.
She said that by giving customers access to surprise bags of surplus bakery products, M&S could help ensure more of its food was enjoyed. Langton said the response from the trial stores had been outstanding, and that the partnership was another positive step towards the company's goal of halving food waste by 2030.
How Too Good To Go works
The Too Good To Go app, founded in 2015, connects customers with shops and restaurants that have extra food available to sell at a reduced price rather than throw away. Brands including Greggs and Pret have already partnered with the app, as well as the supermarkets Aldi and Morrisons.
The company says it has helped save more than 600 million meals from going to waste, and reports 120 million registered users and 200,000 partners across 20 countries.
Too Good To Go's response
Chelsea Kerr, managing director at Too Good To Go UK & Ireland, said the company was delighted to be partnering with M&S to help make its surplus food available to even more customers across the UK and Ireland.
She said food waste was a huge challenge, but that partnerships like this showed how simple it could be for businesses and consumers to take action together. Kerr said that by giving food that might otherwise go unsold another chance to be enjoyed, the partnership was making it easier for people to save good food while also getting great value.
Kerr added that M&S was a much-loved brand across the UK, and that the two companies were excited to work together to make saving food from going to waste a simple and accessible part of everyday life for even more people.
