If you’ve scrolled deep enough on TikTok this summer, you know that Too Good To Go bags are having their moment online right now, and I’m here for it… so much so that I downloaded the app for myself after seeing some of the crazy items people were getting in their bags.
Too Good To Go is an app that focuses on reducing food waste by creating a marketplace for restaurants, cafes, and stores to list food that is about to expire at a fraction of its original price. Most bags are set at a price of $10 or less.
The catch? You have no idea what you’re going to get. Consumers can buy an available mystery blind bag online from a store of their choice at a set cost, then pick it up to see what they got. The only knowledge you have before buying is the type of food that you will get: pizza, donuts, several loaves of bread (which happened to me, and I’m not complaining about it!)… the options are endless.
Whole Foods, a grocery store chain, is probably the most popular participant in the Too Good To Go movement. The store offers a variety of bags from different apartments: prepared foods bags, refrigerated section bags, meat bags, bakery bags, and even floral bags with bouquets, among other options. Unboxings — or maybe unbaggings is the more accurate word — of different Whole Foods blind bags have amassed millions of views online.
In my opinion, one girl online single-handedly popularized the Whole Foods Too Good To Go bags, turning them from a sustainable food option to a coveted phenomenon. The user, named Ellie (@3lliefish on TikTok), posts her findings from different blind bags from Whole Foods almost every day. Many of her videos have amassed hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of views.
Just a few days ago, Ellie posted a video where she showed what was in her Whole Foods seafood bag. The seafood bags, which cost $9.99 on the app, typically contain items like cold-smoked salmon, fresh fish fillets, or shrimp.
This bag was no ordinary seafood bag, though.
At the beginning of the video, Ellie said that when the Whole Foods employee handed her seafood blind bag to her, he said, “This is a one-time thing. I’ve never seen them do this before,” before handing her an unusually small bag.
The suspiciously small bag and the comment from the employee led her to think: “Have I done it? Have I finally received the coveted caviar bag?”
Upon unboxing, her eyes widened before pulling out a package of Imperial Osetra caviar. The total value of the package: $39.99 — four times the price of what she paid. Imperial Osetra caviar comes from the Ossetra sturgeon, commonly known as the Russian sturgeon, and is known as one of the most prized and expensive types of caviar.
Needless to say, when I first saw what was in her Whole Foods seafood bag, I was extremely jealous of her luck. But, for her efforts in popularizing the Too Good To Go bags since 2024, she definitely deserves this rare find.
Ellie later posted a taste test of the caviar where she ate it with creme fraiche and salted kettle potato chips, calling the bite an “explosion in [her] mouth.”
If you want to try your luck at getting caviar in a seafood bag, you’re going to have to do more than just download the Too Good To Go app and reserve a bag. Speaking from experience, a Whole Foods Too Good To Go bag is notoriously difficult to secure, as they sell out just seconds after they drop each night on the app.
My local Whole Foods makes several different types of bags available a little after 9 p.m., and if yours does too, the best way to get a bag is to be on the app a few minutes before the scheduled drop time: this way, you can frantically refresh the page until a bag becomes available.
Even then, my method isn’t fully foolproof. I’ve missed out on several bags, especially the meat and seafood bags, which are less frequently available on the app. But, for the chance of getting caviar for $9.99, it’s worth trying every day to reserve a bag.