I often write reviews and write ups of new products and services on my blog, things we’ve never tried before, but today I want to share with you my experiences with Approved Food, a company we have been shopping with for years.

Approved Food  are a discount online company selling products that are near or just past their best before date. Everything they sell is fit to eat and is really cheap, with most of their products being sold at around 70% less than you’d find them in the shops. I discovered Approved Food several years ago on the Money Saving Expert forums and I’ve been putting in regular orders ever since.

When we shop at Approved Food we tend to use it to stock up on store cupboard ingredients and we tend to buy in bulk, because it’s often cheaper that way. Last week they gave me £30 credit to spend in return for this blog post, so I logged into my account and went on a spree. You can get an awful lot of food for £30 at Approved Food.

Like with any shop, it’s best to have a shopping list before you start. They probably won’t have everything you want in stock, but if you have an idea of what you need then that’s a good start. My store cupboard wish list was fairly standard. Pasta, tinned tomatoes, baked beans, some things for quick puddings, kitchen towel, soups, noodles, mayonnaise, sweet chilli sauce and so on. I always make sure I add a sweet treat to my basket, because I know once I’ve unpacked and everything put away I will deserve a little something with my cup of tea.

The Approved Food website is really easy to use, it’s just like any online shop really, and the food is all neatly categorised – baking, breakfast, pasta and noodles etc. Their newest products and biggest bargains are usually highlighted on their homepage. On the day I did my shop you could buy a 120g box of Maltesers for 1p, so I did.

Because Approved Food stock short dated food that brands and supermarkets won’t be able to sell in time, their stock varies from day to day. So if you’ve bought something one week and loved it, you might not be able to find it again on Approved Food for a little while. You’ll also find lots of your favourite brands and supermarket own brands in stock. You’ll see from my shopping list I’ve got Birds Custard, Branston Baked Beans, Hellmanns Mayonnaise, Knorr stock cubes, Napolina Pasta, Pepsi light, Seeds of Change organic pasta sauce, Whitworths figs and of course my bargain box of Maltesers.

Approved Food often label supermarket own brands they stock as “Perfectly Good Golden Breadcrumbs” for example. When I unpacked the box I’ve discovered they are actually Sainsbury’s own brand breadcrumbs at half the price I paid for them in the shop. Fantastic.

I spent £38.32 including delivery and if I’d paid full price for my products in a supermarket it would have cost me £93.67, saving me £55.35.

Delivery was £4.99. I often balk at delivery prices, but this is about what I’d pay to have a supermarket deliver my weekly shop. It is well packed, all the glass jars are wrapped in bubble-wrap and the big box contains several smaller boxes where the products are neatly packed and stacked. My Approved Food shop usually arrives in better condition than my weekly supermarket shop.

If you want to stock up your store cupboard at a fraction of the cost of what you’d spend, even if you normally shop in a discount supermarket like Aldi, Approved Food is well worth a look. Stocking up my pantry on the cheap has got us through some tough financial times over the last seven years or so and as a result I’m very fond of Approved Food and recommend it (both on here and in real life) to anyone who likes saving money and eating well.

Visit the Approved Food website to see what bargains you can find.

I was given £30 credit to spend at Approved Food in return for this blog post. All images and opinions are my own.