Costa Coffee 99p Too Good To Go bag branded 'absolutely awful' by disappointed mum

Purchasing a mystery Too Good To Go bag is always a risk. You might strike gold with something exceptional worth considerably more than the price paid, or it could prove an utter disappointment. One mum paid just 99p for a bag from Costa Coffee, yet remained wholly underwhelmed by its contents.

Too Good To Go is an app designed to reduce food waste, through which businesses such as cafés, restaurants, and shops bundle up items that would otherwise be binned — typically food approaching its expiry or use-by date — and offer them at substantially reduced prices. Customers reserve bags of items via the app and collect them at a specified time.

But there's a catch: buyers have no idea what they'll receive until the bags are in their hands. And for one woman, the gamble most certainly didn't pay off when she found herself with what she considered an utterly poor deal.

Manchester mum Jo Rourke boasts more than 302,000 followers on TikTok, where she is known as thismumcooks and routinely posts money-saving cookery tips. Yet she was left completely unimpressed upon collecting a Too Good To Go bag from a branch of Costa.

She unveiled the contents in a video, overlaid with the caption "Is this the WORST bag you have ever seen?" Opening the clip, she held up the Costa-branded bag, and said: "Would you pay 99p for this?

"I've not had a Too Good To Go bag for quite a while now. This is a Costa one, obviously. I had a voucher off, a £2 voucher off, so a bag that should have been £2.99 on the Too Good To Go app I paid 99p for.

"It should have £9 worth of items in here. It is incredibly light. I'm not expecting £9 worth of goods in here, and they didn't know that I had a voucher off, so it should be a proper bag. Obviously I've not looked in here before because it's all stapled together."

Removing the contents with a decidedly underwhelmed expression, she remarked: "Is this worth £9? I don't think I've ever had a worse Too Good To Go bag. That is, that's shocking. That is absolutely awful."

Displaying the contents - two double chocolate cookies and a chocolate cornflake nest - she stated: "This should be worth £9. I mean, two cookies and a cake with one chocolate egg on it? That's not even worth 99p. I don't know what to say."

People expressed varied views in the comments, reports the Mirror. One person remarked: "I work for Costa and that is shocking. Actually embarrassing! Hope you were asked about allergies before they put them in?"

Another stated: "I've given up with Too Good To Go. I got one and it was terrible, it was a case of it just going in my bin instead of the Co-op's bin."

However, others highlighted each item typically costs approximately £3 - with prices differing by location, meaning the worth actually totalled roughly £9.

One person commented: "Looks good value to me, just saying." Another said: "Costa employee here... Both of those cookies are £3-something each, and the cornflake cake is just under £3, so yes that's £9 worth. The cookies aren't 'pre packaged' ones, they've just given you the unused ones from the box that is going out of date on that day. So you've got your £9 worth."

Costa Coffee has been approached for comment.