Giving Approved Foods a try

My first order from Approved Foods arrived yesterday.

I first heard about Approved Foods back in 2008 when I was sent an email about it through Recycle This – they help reduce food waste by selling items close-to or just-passed their best before dates — the online equivalent of those cheap food stalls at markets or car boot sales. I remember looking at the site but not being too impressed – the range was limited and tended to be cheaper processed stuff I wouldn’t buy, plus there was a hefty p&p cost pretty much wiped out any savings I’d make on the few things I might buy. Fast forward a year maybe, and I’m reminded of it again but still the same feeling. Then over the last few months, the Frugal Queen has repeatedly spoken of its greatness (and cheapness) so I thought it was worth another look.

The range still doesn’t excite me that much but these are what persuaded me to give it a go in the end:

Deidentified (*cough Sainsbury’s Taste the Difference cough*) mixed Provencal olives and Nouvelle toilet tissue. Two things I buy in the normal course of things, especially when they’re on offer – those olives are just about my favourite supermarket olives. Both were about half their usual RRP. I bought 10 jars of the olives – I like them a lot and they’ve got a long date on them. In fact everything I bought had a decent date on them – the only things after their best before date were two bags of crisps (and their date was only a week ago so they’ll be fine).

The p&p is still pretty hefty – £5.25 for normal UK mainland delivery but it’s for up to 25kg worth of goods so it would be possible to split the cost with a friend and still both be able to buy a decent amount of stuff. I tried to persuade Strowger with the lure of the olives but their stones were their downfall so ended up doing it solo instead. Still, even with having to pay the p&p all by myself, my total was £27.13 for a basket of stuff with an RRP of £46.58 – an overall discount of 42%.

Of course, the RRP stuff is slightly meaningless if you usually buy stuff when it’s on offer (as I do with a lot of stuff and almost always do with [recycled] toilet rolls, for example). I also bought some stuff that I probably wouldn’t buy in the normal case of events – for example, some shortcrust pastry mix. The mix will get used so it’s not a waste of money but it doesn’t feel like I’ll be saving any money because I won’t have to buy them next time I go to the supermarket. I did also buy some Jules Destrooper butter waffle biscuits as an impulse buy because they were cheap – and that’s going to cost me a lot in the future because, my God, they’re fantastically moreish.

I can’t see myself buying stuff from there that regularly – I will keep a closer eye on it from now on in case any more of my favourites come up but the p&p still makes it prohibitive for small orders. I did also get a lots of plastic-based packaging – I appreciate that they wanted to keep my precious olives safe with bubble wrap but the big bag of foam nuggets in with my flour (to, presumably, stop it knocking about) made me much less happy from a green point of view.

Have you used/do you use Approved Foods or any other services like that? Any recommendations/things to avoid advice?

Other posts you might like:

What do you never pay full price for? Cheap treats Things I spotted at the supermarket My 20 year old socks and other long-time-service clothing