OLIO: Saving the Planet on a Budget

So, you want to become a more sustainably-minded individual. Do you find yourself reaching for the bamboo alternative in the supermarket, only to find that your eco-friendly choices are almost double the price of your go-to plastic products? How about buying that “all-natural ingredients” face cream your slightly well-to-do friend has been harping on about? For those of you trying to tighten your purse strings while saving the environment, food sharing might be the new craze you’ve been looking for.

The ‘OLIO’ App

‘OLIO’ The Food Sharing Revolution is a free app that connects neighbours with each other and with local shops so that surplus food can be shared and not binned. Currently, 700 million tonnes of food are wasted by UK homes every year. Scaled down, this equates to ¼ of a normal weekly grocery shop being thrown straight into the bin. Not only is this disastrous for our planet, as food in landfill produces huge quantities of methane, it is also bad for your pocket. By using apps like ‘OLIO’, we can all benefit from a circular food economy, where one person’s leftovers are another person’s meal!

Businesses can donate surplus food through OLIO

There are two ways that food can be put on ‘OLIO’ through households and through businesses. First, anybody in any household with a smartphone can share food via the ‘OLIO’ app. Last week for example, somebody uploaded a bag of apples because they went apple picking and realised they had far too many to eat themselves. Equally, what often happens is that people buy too much food because they’ve seen an offer in the supermarket and then only realise later that they won’t have time to eat it. As well as food waste from households, when businesses have surplus food that they are not going to be able to sell by the end of the day, ‘OLIO’ sends volunteers to go into the store and collect whatever the business is willing to hand over. They then redistribute it to their community via the ‘OLIO’ platform.

Example of quality food being redistributed from OLIO

In recent weeks, there has been a perfect storm of campaigning which has brought the use of single-use plastics to the top of our agendas. While this is a fantastic step in the right direction, food waste also needs to be given critical concern. By using apps like ‘OLIO’, the individual is given back the power to make a difference, environmentally and in their local community.

Did you know OLIOers have rescued & redistributed over 1,100,000 portions of food? WOW! Make your home or office zero food waste instantly by joining our Food Sharing Revolution!

So how does our revolutionary food sharing app work? Check out this 1 minute video.

About the Author: This article was written by ‘OLIO’ the food sharing app, their website can be found here.