Latest news with #SurpriseBags
Daily Mail
2 days ago
- Daily Mail
I discovered a hotel breakfast hack that allows you to eat at five-star hotels for just £4 - and you don't even have to stay
One of the best parts of staying in a hotel is the breakfast – although they're seemingly becoming more and more of an expensive addition. But there's a way of getting the same food for a fraction of the price – and you don't even need to be a hotel guest to reap the benefits. Hundreds of hotel chains have signed up to Too Good To Go – an app that allows users to buy a bag of perfectly good leftover food that would otherwise have gone to waste for a very small price. For as little as £2.99 in some cases, you can bag yourself a Full English if you're prepared to collect it from your local hotel in the allotted time slot. To find out how well this app really works, I headed to six hotels across London to pick up Surprise Bags full of – hopefully – delicious food. As well as on taste, I tested each on value for money. One five-star hotel let me fill up a takeaway box of a huge breakfast buffet, for just £8 – and another property gave me enough to feed two people for just £4. This is how I got on… Novotel Greenwich - £4 My first stop is the Novotel Greenwich, where rooms start at £91, or £109 if you want breakfast included. But rather than paying £18 for a hotel breakfast, I pay just £4 and walk over from my flat on a Saturday morning. At the hotel reception, I show my app, am handed a cardboard box (which feels very heavy), and am sent on my way. When I get back home, I open the box and there's enough food to provide me AND my partner with a hearty breakfast – two sausages, four pieces of bacon, three (delicious) hash browns, scrambled egg, mushrooms and baked beans. For the most part, this was the perfect hangover cure – and incredible value for money – but the egg was very congealed. Wilde Aparthotels Paddington - £4 Studio apartments at Wilde Aparthotels Paddington start at £198 a night, with breakfast included. But it's only £4 for a Too Good To Go breakfast – although don't expect a fry up for that price. I'm handed a bag of three big pastries – a croissant, a Nutella pain au chocolat, and cinnamon bun. Studio apartments at Wilde Aparthotels Paddington start at £198 a night, with breakfast included - but it's only £4 for a Too Good To Go breakfast, and I'm handed a bag of three big pastries (right) While I didn't get as much in this bag, all three pastries were very tasty – especially the pain au chocolat. Hyatt Regency London – The Churchill - £4 My next stop is a five-star hotel in Marylebone, where rooms start at £370 a night – and breakfast is available for an extra £37. But I save £33 by picking up a breakfast through Too Good To Go. And it's a heavy bag of about 12 pastries – mini croissants, cinnamon swirls and pain au chocolats. The cinnamon swirls are absolutely delicious, and the bag is great to snack on throughout the day. Hilton London Metropole - £8 As the most expensive breakfast I try at Too Good To Go, I'm expecting big things from the Hilton London Metropole. And I can't quite believe it as I walk over to the Edgware Road hotel's restaurant and am handed a cardboard box and told 'fill it up with whatever you want'. Prices at this four-star hotel start from £195 – and breakfast costs an extra £24.50 – so this works out an absolute bargain. I pile my box high with sausages, bacon, baked beans and cured meats. I even add in a few little cheese and chive omelettes on offer, as well as a doughnut (which I put into my bag, away from all the savoury food). This is definitely the best offering I get until I reach my next stop. Ibis Earls Court - £4.50 The breakfast at the three-star Ibis Earls Court usually costs £19.95 – but I can get it for just £4.50 on Too Good To Go. Like with the Hilton London Metropole, I'm given a cardboard takeaway box - and I go even more mad with the food than the first time this happens. The breakfast at the three-star Ibis Earls Court usually costs £19.95 – but I can get it for just £4.50 on Too Good To Go. I'm given a cardboard takeaway box - and I go even more mad with the food than the first time this happens I leave with a box full of fried eggs, hash browns, sausages and bacon. The fact that there are hash browns makes it a winner for me – but the sausages are also tastier than the Hilton's too. For £4.50, you absolutely can't go wrong – but some Ibis hotels are even cheaper on Too Good To Go. A Surprise Bag at the Ibis Shepherds Bush, also in London, is £3.50. Stamford Bridge Hotel London - £2.99 My last stop is, unfortunately, also the worst – and Chelsea fans won't be happy about it. Despite the Surprise Bag from here being cheap, I have to sit and wait in reception for it for about half an hour. And what I receive isn't worth the wait either. Although I'm paying £2.99 for a £16.50 breakfast, all I get is a few little pastries, an apple and fruit bar. The only saving grace here is the little carton of orange juice that's included. It was lovely and refreshing after running around London in the heat to pick up all my Surprise Bags. To find out what you can save in your area, head to to the Too Good To Go app.
CNA
6 days ago
- Business
- CNA
Mystery food boxes gaining popularity in Singapore, as merchants aim to cut food waste
SINGAPORE: Artisanal bakery chain Baker & Cook's 'surprise bags' have become so popular among their loyal customers that some wait daily to snag one via a mobile app. Within the past year, the company has sold more than 17,000 of these bags, which contain unsold pastries that would otherwise be discarded due to their short shelf lives. They go for half the usual price and are curated by the bakery's staff, who pack the orders based on what is available that day. Customers can then drop by in the evenings to collect their goodies from the outlet they ordered from. Baker & Cook's Singapore head Seah Ern Xu said the biggest boon of this initiative is being able to reduce food waste. 'Usually, for our croissants or pain au chocolat, these have to be thrown away after a day or two. But in this case, we can give it to a lucky guest, and they get to enjoy our quality bakes,' she told CNA. It is among several food businesses in Singapore that have jumped on the mystery box trend, selling surprise bundles of unsold food at a discount to bring in additional income and cut waste. An average of 750,000 tonnes of food waste was generated every year over the past five years, making up 11 per cent of the country's total waste. SELLING LIKE HOTCAKES These food mystery boxes – mostly sold via mobile apps – are proving to be a hit. Yindii, an app that allows users to purchase surprise bags, has seen around 160,000 sign-ups since it launched in August last year. Users can buy bags at the end of each day, which contain surplus food from eateries sold at between 50 and 80 per cent off the usual retail price. The app was founded in Thailand in 2020 before launching in Hong Kong about two years ago. Singapore is currently Yindii's biggest market, said the brand's country head of partnerships Terry Quek. On average, 70 to 80 per cent of the surprise bags get snapped up every day. There are about 80 brands and more than 400 stores on the platform currently, including Baker & Cook. 'We are looking to grow this tremendously because the demand is high, (but) it's also tricky for us, because it's our job to educate members of the public, our merchants and vendors, everybody about how they can recover costs and also prevent food wastage,' Mr Quek added. 'The problem we are having right now is trying to get a mindset shift on some of the merchants, because some of them are not (open) to such ideas.' Another similar platform, Treatsure, allows users to buy a box for S$10 (US$8) and fill it up with food from hotel buffets up to an hour before closing time. Treatsure has five partners so far that include the Grand Hyatt, Fairmont and Novotel. Separately, the firm started its Treatsure thrill box concept in January this year. It has seen a fivefold increase in demand for them since then, said its CEO and co-founder Preston Wong. Users are offered a mystery concept where staff at restaurants and retail outlets will select food items for them to bring home. Mr Wong said the surprise element can be a big draw for customers. 'As you know, some other mystery blind boxes offer toys, but for us, we decided to apply it in the food space and give consumers that same surprise,' he added. TACKLING CLIMATE CHANGE Homegrown cake shop Emicakes, which has several outlets across Singapore, also began packing its leftovers into mystery bundles about two weeks ago. It sells them for 40 per cent off – S$14 instead of the usual S$24 – on the Treatsure app. The shop's general manager Madeliene Soh said she started doing it partly to increase sales, but mostly to reduce food waste and be more sustainable. 'Instead of … doing all the inventory management to dispose of all the stocks … we can use this platform to give to the customers in the form of rebates and stuff,' she added. In 2024, only 18 per cent of unwanted food in Singapore was recycled. Food waste that ends up in landfills releases greenhouse gases into the environment, adding to global warming. Yindii's Mr Quek said a user can offset an average of 2.5kg of carbon dioxide by buying a surprise bag. They can track this through a counter on the app. 'The same goes with the merchants on the totality of how much they have saved in terms of the bags as well,' he added. Moving forward, he said Yindii is looking to expand beyond food and groceries to include other perishables like flowers and pet food. 'It's our job to also educate the partners that some items still can be consumed after the best before date. So just use your senses - your nose to smell everything, your eyes to see whether it is safe to consume,' Mr Quek added.
