Shopping can be hungry work, and with dozens of retailers lining the floors of Manchester Arndale centre, you can find yourself feeling peckish pretty quickly. But did you know that there’s a way you can get delicious food at some of their vendors for a fraction of the price?
There are 12 of Manchester Arndale restaurants, cafes and eateries partnered with the Too Good To Go food waste saving app, which sees prices slashed up to 70 per cent off because items are nearly past best. The app is free to download, with shoppers reserving ‘magic bags’ for a fraction of the retail price seeing as the food would otherwise go in the bin.
One of the Arndale food spots partnered with the app is Auntie Anne’s - the pretzel counter located outside The Card Factory. The pop-up opened in 2018 and has been dishing out giant American style pretzels to shoppers ever since.
Most days Auntie Anne’s uploads two sets of mystery bags at separate collection times, one between 2.30pm and 3pm, and a later one between 6pm and 6.30pm. The bags cost £4.29 but promise £10 worth of sweet or savoury pretzels, stix, nuggets or pretzel dogs.
Pretzels at Auntie Anne’s cost between £4 and £5 on average, so the cost of a magic bag is essentially the price of one standard pretzel. And just because they’re ‘past best’ it doesn’t by any means suggest they’re stale or any less enjoyable.
The dough for all the menu items is made from scratch on site, with everything hand rolled and baked. All the pretzels come with a freshness guarantee, meaning your pretzel has been baked within the last 30 minutes or less. In other words, if you’re getting a Too Good To Go bag, your pretzel was made more than half an hour ago - which is still fresh enough for me.
The potential offerings include pretzels dusted in cinnamon sugar, sprinkled in salt, almond pretzels, those topped with melted cheese or wrapped around a sausage, as well as pretzels featuring sesame, jalapeno, cheese and bacon, and pepperoni. Other finds include pretzel nuggets or sticks, best served with an array of dips, such as marinara, cheese, honey mustard, sweet glaze or sticky caramel.
When I arrived with my Too Good To Go app up and ready to swipe, the speedy staff members grabbed a trio of pretzels and bagged them up before handing them over. Meanwhile an additional member of staff was handing out free bite size samples, so of course, I tasted one of those too - rude not to, right?
Inside my Too Good To Go bag was one of their original sea salt pretzels and two cinnamon sugar dusted pretzels that were all as big as my head. The dough was still perfectly soft and chewy and the cinnamon sugar was extremely moreish. But one pretzel was more than enough for one person, so naturally I shared the others with my family.
They were a bargain price as even three supermarket pretzels would be likely to cost around £4 and would be half the size, so I was pretty pleased with this mid-shop pit stop!
Too Good To Go encourages anyone using their app to be proud of doing so, in helping fight food waste, and suggests sharing extra food with others. The brand said: “If you have extra to share, you can donate to different charities in the app. A small amount can go a long way. If you’ve bought too much food, we would love it if you shared it with someone as well. Could be a neighbour. Your BFF. Or even a homeless person. Sharing is caring.”
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