Flashfood Review: How I Save Money on Healthy Groceries!

Most of the time when you’re looking for ways to save money on groceries, you’ll find tips about using coupons or making budget-friendly meals. Those are great options, but many of those coupon deals or budget meals are often lacking fruits, veggies, and other nutritious options.

No shade to those savings strategies, of course. But if you’re focused on eating a balanced diet, you’ll want to check out the Flashfood app to save money on groceries! My favorite part about this app is that you can frequently find discounted produce and protein options – two of the toughest things to consistently save money on, yet so important for your diet.

The short and quick review: I LOVE it! It helps me eat a healthy diet on a budget. I have saved a ton of money using it. While occasionally I’ve had an issue with a missing product or food quality, that has been rare and it’s always been addressed either at the store level or at the Flashfood customer service level.

I’m going to break down everything you need to know about using the app, based on my personal experiences using the app over the couple years.

Once you download the app, you’ll be able to see if there are any stores in your area. If you find a store, you can click to view all the available foods. Here’s an example of what one of my local stores was selling this week.

You purchase foods right on the app. After you order, you’ll see a section in the app with pickups – if you click that, you can view exactly what you ordered. Here’s an example of a recent order and what that looks like:

Then you just head into the store to pick them up. There is typically a large Flashfood cooler by the checkout area of the store. Depending on the store, an employee at self-checkout will help find your ordered items from that cooler (how it works for our stores), or an employee at customer service will confirm your order and you will go find it from the cooler (how it works in some other stores).

Easy peasy!

What kinds of foods are on Flashfood?

The grocery items on Flashfood vary widely depend on what the store has excess of or what they’re looking to get rid of quickly. Note that not all items are close to expiration; some are simply overstock.

Here’s a few common things you’ll find:

• Produce boxes – Many Flashfood locations offer $5 produce boxes. These can be vegetables only, fruit only, or a combination. In my opinion, these are one of the absolute best deals that you can score! Sometimes the produce is items with slight imperfections, and other times it’s items of which they have extra inventory. When these boxes are available, I like to purchase them and plan my meals around them.

• Individual produce – In addition to the boxes, I frequently see individual produce items like bags of salad, cauliflower, apples, etc.

• Meat – You’ll often see meat that is within a few days of it’s sell by date. These are great for purchasing for a last minute dinner if you know you’ll cook them that day, or for immediately freezing.

• Prepared foods – We often see prepared foods like buffalo chicken, mac and cheese, ravioli, etc. I don’t get these as often but I do love them sometimes when I’ve had a tough week and just want something easy.

• Dairy products – In our area, I see milk and yogurt frequently on the app. These are often posted when they’re reaching the best by date – but unopened milk and yogurt can often still be good for at least a week past this date! You’ll know when milks gone bad because it smells sour.

• Baked goods – Baguettes, french bread, and pizza crusts are often on the app in our area! As are day-old sweet treats from the store’s bakery, like cookies or cupcakes.

• Extras – Often, the store will list random items that they have overstock of – for example, we’ve gotten pickle dip and cold brew coffee this way!

Sample Orders

Here are just a few sample orders that I’ve gotten over the last year.

Below, you’ll see a banana box, a mixed vegetable box, a mixed fruit box, burgers, sausage, and ravioli. Total price? $22.

Here’s another order with a mixed vegetable produce box, a mixed fruit box, and a banana box, totaling $12. Occasionally my store sells those banana boxes for only $2, which is amazing! We eat some, use some for banana bread, make banana oat pancakes (one of my fav frugal breakfasts) and then freeze the rest for smoothies.

And yet another spread of fruits and vegetables (clearly, I have a pattern with what I buy, haha). I was pumped to get a bunch of avocados on this day! Peppers, onions, apples, and oranges are pretty common to get in the boxes. Everything below cost a total of $10 (two produce boxes).

Here is one last example – a produce box, two containers of salad greens, and pork chops, which came to $12 total. We had quite a few salads on the menu that week!

Any problems with Flashfood?

Over the last several years I’ve used the app at least a couple times a month. I’ve only run into issues a handful of times. Here are the two issues I’ve had:

• Missing items – Some stores are better at tracking their inventory than others. I’ve shown up a few times and something I’ve ordered has not been in the Flashfood cooler/pantry. In those cases, I’ve found every time it’s been addressed at the store level – they’ve offered to give me something else or just gone and gotten the item fresh from the store for me.

• Poor food quality – This has only happened two times that I remember – once where a mango salsa container was bloated because of spoilage, and once where the bottom of my produce box had some moldy produce. In both of those cases, Flashfood issued a credit.

Since this has been rare and any issues have always been addressed, I’m more than happy to keep using the app. However, I realize the consistency and quality of items may vary from location to location.

How much can you save?

It really depends on what you buy! As you can see, I find the produce boxes to be the biggest deal, often saving me up to 70% of what the food would cost to buy it individually. That’s a win-win for me as a dietitian, as I’m able to feed myself and my family more produce at a reduced price.

For most items, though, the prices are typically marked 50% of the retail cost.

Unfortunately with inflation, that may not be as big of a savings as it used to be, as the standard retail cost has gone up. But it still makes a big difference in our grocery bill.

My best tip to ensure the biggest savings is to first shop on Flashfood, then plan your meals as much as possible around the discounted items you’re buying in the app.

For example, in one of the photos above, I got burgers, sausage, and ravioli, along with the produce boxes. I planned meals like:

• Burgers with a simple green salad topped with tomatoes (using the burgers and tomatoes from my order)
• Sausages with peppers, onions, and sweet potatoes (using the sausage, peppers, and sweet potatoes from my order)
• Ravioli with pasta sauce and a side of balsamic roasted eggplant and peppers (using the ravioli, eggplant, and peppers from my order)
• Stuffed pepper soup (using the rest of the peppers from my order)
• Breakfast for dinner – banana oat pancakes, eggs, sliced fruit (using the bananas, apples, and oranges from my order)

Then I just need to shop for the couple of extra items – like salad greens, onions, buns, pasta sauce, lean ground beef, canned tomatoes, broth, rice, eggs, and oats – to complete the meal ideas.

You can also prep some meals ahead of time if you are buying a few proteins that are close to their sell-by date. For example, maybe you find a pork butt and some chicken breast on the app. You could immediately make pulled pork in the crockpot and sauté that chicken with some Italian dressing. Those cooked proteins can then be used over the next few days in different meals (or can be frozen to be pulled out later).

Essentially – Flashfood + meal planning = major savings!

Food safety tips

Many people are concerned about purchasing food that’s nearing it’s “expiration” date or that has slight imperfections. But this is one of the reasons so much good food goes to waste!

Here are a few key facts for you to know that will help you feel more comfortable buying foods close to “expiration” dates:

• Food expiration dates are only for product quality, not food safety. According to the USDA, “Manufacturers provide dating to help consumers and retailers decide when food is of best quality. Except for infant formula, dates are not an indicator of the product’s safety and are not required by Federal law.“

• “Best if Used By/Before” indicates when a product will retain best flavor/quality, “Use By” is the last date recommended for peak flavor/quality, and “Sell-By” is for the store’s inventory management. None of these are safety dates (unless the product is infant formula).

• The USDA specifically says “With an exception of infant formula, if the date passes during home storage, a product should still be safe and wholesome if handled properly until the time spoilage is evident. Spoiled foods will develop an off odor, flavor or texture due to naturally occurring spoilage bacteria.”

Hopefully this helps you feel more comfortable! Of course, there’s a few good tips to put into place:

• If buying meat that’s close to the sell-by date, plan to cook it or freeze it within a day.

• Give meat and fish the “smell test” to help determine if it’s still good. Anything that smells off should be tossed. Fish should not smell particularly “fishy”.

• Freeze baked goods like baguettes or biscotti until you’re ready to enjoy them; this will keep them fresh longer.

• If you buy yogurt and won’t be able to eat it all before it goes bad, you can freeze extra in an ice cube tray and use it to throw into smoothies.

• Produce with small bruises or imperfections are still perfectly fine to eat, just cut out that bruised spot.

• When it comes to mold, the USDA says that you can cut mold spots and the area surrounding them off of firm produce (like cabbage, bell peppers, or carrots) and enjoy the rest of the item. (Soft produce, breads, etc with mold should be thrown away).

• If you buy extra produce (like in the $5 boxes), you can always freeze some to use in later cooking or smoothies.

• Try to plan your meals around the items that will go bad quickest, using these earlier in the week.

• Note which stores you have the best and worst experiences with as far as food costs and quality, and shop accordingly. I’ve never had any issues with the stores near me – but I know I’ve seen occasional chatter in some of my budgeting groups where people have had a one-off issue with spoiled food or missing items. Of course, Flashfood will refund you for issues like this, but it does take a few days to get a response.

The Bottom Line

If you’ve made it this far in the post, chances are you’re at least a little interested in trying out Flashfood for yourself. I would absolutely recommend giving it a shot, whether you’re looking for ways to save money on groceries or simply want to help prevent excess food waste at the retail level.

Don’t forget to use my referral code CHRI2VVQP when you sign up so you’ll get $5 off your first purchase. 🙂

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Chrissy Carroll

Chrissy Carroll is a Registered Dietitian and USAT Level I Triathlon Coach. She specializes in sharing nutrition and fitness tips, as well as recipes, for runners, triathletes, and active women.Chrissy holds a Bachelor's Degree in Nutrition, a Masters Degree in Public Health, and is also an ACSM Certified Personal Trainer.

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