OLIO is a free app (mobile & web) that connects neighbours with each other and volunteers with local businesses, so surplus food can be shared, not thrown away. If you love food, hate waste, care about the environment or want to connect with your community, OLIO is for you.
Ultimately, the mission is to unlock the value of food that is wasted in the home and local community. The way the app works is simple. Users snap a photo of their spare and add it to the app. Neighbours who live nearby receive customised alerts and can request anything that takes their fancy. All items are offered for free.
Food shared could be food nearing its sell-by date from local stores, spare home-grown vegetables, bread from the local baker, or the groceries in your fridge when you goaway, move home or go on a diet. You can also share non-food items such as furniture, clothes, toys, household and beauty products.
Food waste is a major issue, and not just for the supermarkets. Globally, a third of all food produced is wasted, and in the UK, households account for half of all waste-binning over £15bn of edible food, costing families £800 per year (ref). Food waste is also costly for local stores and councils and ranks as one of the world’s largest emitters of greenhouse gases.
OLIO has been used in over 50 countries and over 1.8million items have been successfully shared between neighbours. That’s the equivalent of preventing 1,564 CO2emissions from entering the atmosphere and eliminating 4,692,637car miles from the road.
OLIO also has a flourishing volunteer network-over 36,000 people have reached out to the organisation requesting to become volunteers, to promote food sharing locally and rescue and redistribute food in their communities via OLIO!
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