Serve the food you really want to eat by signing up for our tips and recipes and never be bored by your cooking again Serve the food you really want to eat by signing up for our tips and recipes and never be bored by your cooking again Don't bother writing a shopping list. There's a high chance you won't find any of the items you're after on a visit to the Company Shop but if you go with an open mind you'll leave with a trolley load of bargains. Unlike Aldi, Tesco, Sainsbury's and all the other big supermarkets, every single item is cut-price but as an outlet for surplus stock, there's no guarantee what you'll find on the day you visit. The chiller cabinets are packed with meat, fish, and diary. You'll find fruit and vegetables and shelves with savoury snacks, biscuits, canned goods and alcohol. There's frozen food, cosmetics, pet food and household items too. If it sounds too good to be true, there is a catch. Not everyone can roll up to this little-known store. NHS and private healthcare workers and carers, firefighters, police, those who work for the prison service and members of the Armed Forces are eligible to shop there. Employees and volunteers of registered charities and people on means-tested benefits such as Universal Credit and Pension Credit can also apply for membership. The only other way is knowing someone with a membership card who can give you a guest pass. That's how I came to visit the Company Shop, off Chapel Street in Long Eaton. One of just 13 in England and Scotland, it's the closest for shoppers in Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire. A lot of the stock is close to the use by date, with many branded products from Waitrose, M&S, Tesco and Asda. We saw halibut, venison shanks, steak and chicken, all at half the usual price. Some had that day's date and the rest was ideal for freezing. A gammon joint was £3 and two tuna steaks for £2.75 were a surprisingly cheap buy - I recently saw similar in a mainstream supermarket priced at £9. Be sure to check the quality though as some of the greying tuna was clearly past its best. We loaded the trolley with Cadbury Mini Rolls, Doritos Extra Flamin' Hot tortilla chips, Schweppes lemonade, a punnet of fresh strawberries, apples and Tetley decaffeinated tea bags, which were just a fraction of the usual price. The shop was even giving away jars of mayonnaise which had a best before date of that particular day. Anyone wanting a loaf of wholemeal bread were in luck - it was just 10p. Some items are end of line such as festive tins of biscuits, others are a result of manufacturing mishaps. Cans of Heinz vegan baked beans and sausages had a warning label that due to an error they might contain pork, while tins of M&S mixed beans had an incorrect weight. Some of the food and drink has unbranded packaging but it's perfectly fine - it's just another production mistake. There's a random selection of stock - fairground-style coconuts anyone? Some items are more random than others. Smirnoff vodka infused with spice and sweet tamarind had clearly not been a sell-out success and Marmite cheese bakes weren't exactly flying off the shelves, even discounted. I found things I never knew I needed such as a big bag of M&S parmesan and prosciutto crisps for 75p, Heck chicken chipolatas priced £2, a jar of brinjal pickle 95p and a Gardenia scented candle for £3.50. Forget Aldi's middle aisle, the 'Ready to Rummage' section is even better. All the items here are undelivered orders from the likes of Ocado and Amazon. It's a real mish-mash of food, make-up, stationery, drinks, phone charging cables, bath towels, duvet sets, if you dig deep you don't know what you might find. Some might be a bit squashed or dinted but there's nothing wrong with any of it. The freezer section is a must. I spotted massive unbranded catering-style bags of French fries, Birds Eye Fish Fingers, Goodfella's garlic bread, itsu gyozas, Haagen-Dazs ice cream, Magnums and Aunt Bessie's meat-free toad in the hole. We picked up some piri piri salmon but passed on the tubs of Smugglers' vanilla ice cream with hidden parsnip. As well being helping customers to save on their shopping bill, the Company Shop also helps to reduce food waste. The rescued products across the Company Shop network have been turned into more than 93 million meals, while shoppers have saved a whopping £112 million.