M&S Launches on Too Good To Go with £3.80 Bakery Bags
Last checked: the 14th of September 2026.
Too Good To Go is an app that lets shops, cafés and restaurants sell surplus food at a reduced price through Surprise Bags. M&S Food has now expanded its partnership with the service, with participating UK stores offering M&S Too Good To Go bakery bags for £3.80 containing at least £10.20 worth of food.
Sounds good, doesn't it, but the small caveat is that you won't know exactly what you're getting before you collect it. That's because these bakery bags will be made up from whatever is left over towards the end of the day, so there's no way to know what'll be available until staff check what bakery items are left over and then make up the bags.
The wider rollout covers 354 M&S stores across the UK and Ireland following an earlier trial. Each UK bag contains three to four bakery products, with pastries, cookies and bread among the examples M&S has given. Realistically, it could also include rolls, cakes, and anything else that needs to be used up rather than thrown away.
How do M&S Too Good To Go bags work?
You'll reserve and pay for an available M&S bakery Surprise Bag through the Too Good To Go app, then collect it from the store during the time frame shown in the app. UK bags cost £3.80 for at least £10.20 worth of bakery products, with collection available Monday to Saturday around one hour before the local store closes.
Availability changes daily because bags are only created when a store has surplus bakery stock; if the bakery has been particularly busy on that day and there's nothing left over, you'll be notified if you have already bought a bag and you'll be refunded.
If you've never used the service before, my full Too Good To Go app review explains the process in more detail and includes my own experience of collecting Surprise Bags. I've used Too Good To Go many times; I've even been on a TV show talking about them, plus I also spent time making up bags while working at Morrisons, so I've seen the process from all angles.
You don't need to visit M&S first to see whether a bag is available. Search for your nearest Marks & Spencer through Too Good To Go, reserve the bag if one is available, then follow the collection time shown on your order. I wouldn't make a special journey until you've actually secured one, because a participating store may have bags one day and none the next, plus demand is likely to be high. Demand could be high at first, so don’t be surprised if your local store regularly shows as sold out. I’d save it as a favourite and check again rather than making a special journey in the hope that a bag will appear.
What can you get in an M&S bakery Surprise Bag?
Each M&S bakery Surprise Bag contains three to four products, and as I say, you won't know what you'll get until you actually pick the bag up. Every bag could be the same, or each could be totally different from the one somebody else collected at the same time, and that's half the fun of getting the bag; it makes it a bit exciting!
That's part of what makes Too Good To Go useful for reducing food waste, but it also matters when you're looking at it purely as a money-saving option. I've had bags where almost everything was useful and others where the stated retail value looked good, but some of the food wasn't something we'd use. In one of my previous collections I paid £4 for about £12 worth of food, but even then one item ended up unused, which reduced the real saving.
Check the ingredients and allergen information on whatever you receive before eating it, but be aware that if the product is loose, so not a pre-packed item, there may be no labelling giving you nutritional information and ingredients/allergens, so that's worth bearing in mind if that could be important to you.
Are Too Good To Go bags good value?
I’m a big fan of Too Good To Go, and as I say, I’ve used it plenty of times over the years, but I don’t automatically count a Surprise Bag as a saving on my grocery bill, and you shouldn't either. That's because you don’t know exactly what you’re going to receive, so there’s no guarantee that the food in the bag will replace anything you were already planning to buy; sometimes it will, and sometimes you’ll have spent a few pounds on extra food you don't actually want, or can't use, and that's not always ideal if you're making use of a food waste reduction app to save money. It ends up costing more, for very little in return.
That’s quite an important distinction if you’re using Too Good To Go specifically to reduce your food costs. If I pay £4 for a bag containing £12 worth of food that we’ll eat instead of buying other groceries, I’ve saved money. If I pay £4 and get products I wouldn’t normally buy, don’t particularly want or struggle to use, I’ve actually added £4 to my food spending rather than reduced it.
I’ve had both experiences. One of the more memorable fruit and vegetable bags I collected from a supermarket contained about 12 lettuces. It may well have been excellent value based on the original selling price, but realistically, what was I going to do with 12 lettuces? They’re not particularly freezer-friendly, there are only so many salads you can eat, and most households would struggle to use that quantity before it deteriorated.
That doesn’t mean the bag was a bad Too Good To Go bag; it did what the app is designed to do: find somebody to take surplus food that might otherwise have been wasted. Still, from a household budgeting point of view, that bag of lettuces added to our family's outgoings and gave very little in return, so it wasn't a good purchase.
Why the M&S bakery Surprise Bags could be better for bargain hunters
The M&S bags have one advantage over a completely mixed supermarket or greengrocer bag: you already know the broad type of food you’re buying. Each one contains three to four bakery products, with M&S offering things such as pastries, cookies and bread among the possible contents, so there’s less uncertainty than opening a general grocery bag containing almost anything.
If you already buy bread or other bakery products, there’s a reasonable chance that at least some of the contents could replace something you would otherwise have bought. It’s also an inexpensive way to try M&S bakery products that you might normally decide were a bit too expensive at full price. You still can’t choose what you receive, so I’d think of the £3.80 as a potential bargain rather than money definitely saved from the weekly shop.
There’s also nothing wrong with buying one simply because you enjoy the surprise, and that’s part of the appeal of Too Good To Go for me, and getting £10.20 or more of M&S bakery products for £3.80 could be a bit of fun as well as a bargain. I'll be honest and say M&S Food stores are a guilty pleasure for me, and with a big one just 10 minutes away, I often 'accidentally' find myself there. The bakery section looks amazing but can be a bit pricey, so being able to try some of those tasty-looking treats without breaking the bank is very appealing. I wouldn’t treat the £3.80 as money definitely saved from your weekly shop. Unless you happen to receive products you would have bought anyway, it’s still an extra £3.80 coming out of your budget. My rule would be to buy a Surprise Bag only if you can afford for the contents to be a bit of a gamble. If spending that £3.80 means going without something you actually need, I’d leave it. You’d be pretty unlucky not to get anything useful at all, but there’s never a guarantee.
Can you freeze food from an M&S Too Good To Go bag?
Freezing could make an M&S bakery bag much easier to use if you collect more than you can eat over the next day or two. Bread, rolls and some other bakery products can often be frozen, so you don’t necessarily have to work through the whole bag immediately. Check the packaging or storage information first because not every product or filling will be suitable for freezing.
A best-before date is about quality rather than food safety. Food can still be safe after that date if it has been stored correctly, although the taste or texture may not be as good. If something has a use-by date, that relates to safety and you shouldn’t eat it after that date unless it was cooked or frozen beforehand in line with the storage instructions.
If you freeze something before its use-by date, the Food Standards Agency advises using it within 24 hours of defrosting. I’d freeze suitable bakery products as soon as possible after collecting the bag if I knew we weren’t going to eat them quickly. That gives you a much better chance of actually using what you’ve paid for rather than turning a bargain into food waste.
That makes products such as ordinary bread potentially easier to manage than some of the chilled food you might receive in a general grocery surprige bag. Still, every bakery product will carry a best-before or use-by date, so check it and use/store the product accordingly.
So, is the M&S Too Good To Go bag good value?
At £3.80 for at least £10.20 worth of bakery products, you’re paying at least £6.40 less than the normal combined retail value, which is around 63% less. On price alone, that’s a substantial reduction, particularly if you like M&S bakery food and can use most of what you collect.
For me, the better test is what happens after you get it home. If the bag gives you bread you would have bought anyway, something for breakfast and a couple of treats the family will eat, you could get excellent value from £3.80. If most of it sits untouched because nobody likes it, the original £10.20 retail value doesn’t really help your household budget.
I’d therefore treat these bags as an extra opportunity to enjoy a M&S bakery product at a discounted price, rather than build them into my weekly grocery budget.
You might get lucky and replace several things you were going to buy anyway, but you can’t know that in advance. If you’re happy with that uncertainty, the chance to pick up several M&S bakery products for £3.80 makes these particularly tempting compared with some of the more random Too Good To Go bags I’ve collected in the past.
Which M&S stores have Too Good To Go?
The rollout covers 354 M&S locations across the UK and Ireland, but the quickest way to see whether your local store is participating is through Too Good To Go itself. Search for Marks & Spencer in the app and check the listing for your nearest branch, because availability depends on local surplus and a store won't necessarily have bags every day.
If your local M&S keeps appearing as sold out, saving the store as a favourite can make it easier to check again. M&S bakery listings will be popular and sell fast, but stock will naturally vary because the whole system relies on food being left unsold, and that's hard for M&S to predict.
You'll often see other retailers on the app that also sell M&S grocery products. A couple of local petrol stations near me sell M&S food products. They also offer Too Good To Go bags, so you may well pick up some M&S grub that way too, but likely not the deli-style or bakery-style products, as those are normally only available from M&S supermarkets, not smaller, petrol-station-style vendors.
What time do you collect an M&S Too Good To Go bag?
The new UK M&S bakery bags are available for collection Monday to Saturday, around one hour before the participating store closes. Your actual reservation shows the collection window you need to follow, so use the time in the app rather than working it out yourself from a store's advertised closing time.
When you arrive, tell a member of staff you’re collecting a Too Good To Go order and follow the instructions in the app. They’ll direct you to the collection point if necessary, then you show your order and swipe the collection slider in front of them to confirm the pick-up. Once that’s done, the Surprise Bag is yours
Why has M&S joined Too Good To Go?
Food waste from supermarkets gets plenty of criticism, particularly when people see edible-looking food being thrown away. I’ve seen some of those social media videos myself and they can be pretty difficult to watch, especially when so many households are struggling with food costs. I can’t say those posts prompted this particular partnership, but giving more surplus food another route to customers is something I’m pleased to see.
M&S already uses reductions, charity redistribution and other routes to deal with unsold food. Too Good To Go now gives some of its surplus bakery products another route rather than leaving them unsold, and the partnership forms part of M&S’s wider target to halve food waste by 2030.
I’d like to see that approach extended wherever there’s edible food that can realistically be redistributed rather than wasted. This scheme won’t solve every food-waste problem, but it gives customers another opportunity to make use of some of that surplus.
From a shopper's point of view, you don't need to buy a bag simply because it prevents waste unless you can afford to; it's more about whether that £3.80 bag of bakery goodies will save you money on your grocery costs, or if you want the opportunity to enjoy some M&S bakery products at a considerable discount; either way, you just have to decide what works best for you and your wallet.
Frequently asked questions
How much is an M&S Too Good To Go bag?
In participating UK M&S stores, the new bakery Surprise Bag costs £3.80 and contains at least £10.20 worth of bakery products. The exact contents depend on the surplus available in the store that day.
What is inside an M&S Too Good To Go bag?
Each bag contains three to four surplus bakery products. Possible items include pastries, rolls, cookies, cakes and bread, but you can't choose the products in advance; it's a case of you get what you get!
Which M&S stores do Too Good To Go?
The wider rollout covers 354 M&S stores across the UK and Ireland. Search for Marks & Spencer in the Too Good To Go app to see whether your local branch has a participating bakery.
What time do you collect an M&S Too Good To Go bag?
The new M&S bakery bags are available Monday to Saturday, with collection about an hour before the participating store closes. Follow the collection instructions in your reservation details in the app, especially since collection times differ by store.
Is an M&S Too Good To Go bag worth it?
For UK shoppers, £3.80 for at least £10.20 of bakery products is about 63% below the minimum retail value. Whether you genuinely save that much depends on whether you can use the surprise contents rather than buying food you wouldn't otherwise need.
Why can't I find an M&S Too Good To Go bag?
Bags appear only when a participating store has bakery surplus, and availability can vary day to day. A store can also sell out, so saving it as a favourite can make it easier to check again.
