Discounted Mystery Food Boxes Increasingly Popular In S’pore, As Customers Aim To Save Cash & Vendors Cut Food Waste
Bakery chain Baker & Cook has sold more than 17,000 “surprise bags” over the past year. They contain half-priced unsold pastries that would otherwise be discarded due to their short shelf lives.
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.
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Photo: Baker & Cook
“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,” he told CNA.
Photo: Baker & Cook
Selling like hotcakes
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.
Photo: Yindii
Up to 80 percent discount off unsold food
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 $10 and fill it up with food from hotel buffets up to an hour before closing time.
Separately, the firm started its thrill box concept in January this year. It has seen a fivefold increase in demand for them since then, said Treatsure's 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.
Treatsure currently has 26 hotel partners and 10 food and beverage partners.
Photo: Emicakes
Helps with climate change
Homegrown cake shop Emicakes, which has several outlets across Singapore, also began packing its surplus cakes into mystery bundles about two weeks ago.
It sells them for 40 per cent off – $14 instead of the usual $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.
Emicakes leftovers being packed into a mystery box.
Photo: CNA
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.
Source: CNA/lt(dn)
The original version of this story first appeared in CNA.
For more CNA stories, visit https://www.channelnewsasia.com/.
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