Food Waste Hero: how to share food

Sharing food as a FWH can feel daunting. Especially for evening collections where you've got a limited amount of time to get food out the door! But don't worry, you'll get the hang of it 🙌

Follow these helpful guidelines to make sure you're a super sharer.

Share widely

• Share as widely as possible, ideally giving 2 - 3 items per requester, to ensure that as many people as possible can benefit. 
• Try a ''pre-listing'' in the morning, to make local Olio-ers aware of your upcoming collection so they check back and request your items.  

Remember: the food you collect from a business must only be shared with people who request it via the Olio app. If you'd like to share with other groups, please request they download the app and request on Olio. 🙌

Share in good time

We know collections can sometimes be hectic! 😅 But please do try and list as early as possible, for as long as possible. Collecting late, then not sharing til 11pm will make it difficult for other Olio-ers to see your listings and request.

Share safely

There are a few things to keep in mind to share food safely on the app for others. Check out our FAQ on Sharing safely, for a comprehensive list of issues, and important guidelines. 

Categorise your listings 

You can group items together and choose how to list the food you collect.

📸 Remember that the “Use By” date of each food item must be clear in the listing photo(s) so only group items that have the same “Use By” or “Best Before” date.

NOTE: We ask to have a clear picture of the date in the listing as unfortunately, some FWHs hide the date in the attempt to share food past its Use by.

🥪 E.g. if you have:  10 cheese sandwiches with Use by date '26/06' and 5 salads with Use by date '27/06'

❌ Don't add 1 listing with both the sandwiches and the salads

✅ Post 1 listing of  ''Sandwiches'', 1 of ''Salads'' and use the Description field to add more information. 

Assign the correct slot

Choose the corresponding collection slot on the "Available Collection Slots" screen (image below), so that the food collected is accurately tracked against your slot. 

On that screen you will find all the useful information to the collection slot selection including the date, time and address of the collection and the most recent collection slot will be at the top of the list.

From there, you can also ask the app to remember the slot you’ve selected for the next 60 minutes, to help speed up the process of adding listings.

The collection slot will show on the app 10 hours before the start time. The collection will remain visible on the app until 24 hours after the start time.

Example:

• I have a collection at 20:00 on 12th January.
• The collection will show in the app at 10:00 on the 12th January
• The collection will disappear from the app at 20:00 on the 13th January.

This allows time to add best before items the day after your collection.

*Please note that it is not currently possible to list non-food items against a collection slot, so if you are collecting non-food items from a business, please post them as 'Food' instead.

Quantity of items - Baskets 

To help calculate Olio's impact accurately, please indicate how many items there are in your listing. For example: one listing of 5 sandwiches, tap '5', one listing of 20 bananas, type 20. 

🛒  You could use our Baskets function to keep track of which requester wants what items, and how much of it. 

⚠️  Please note that this isn't a stock/ inventory counter, and it doesn't automatically reduce how many items are still available based on the number you've already given to someone else.

Set the expiry date: Add "Best Before" or "Use By" dates

:📸 All listings must show the "Use By" date or "Best Before" in the picture. (the rule doesn't apply to food without labels such as hot food, loose pastries, or loose fruits & vegetables.)

⏰ To make sure your listing automatically unlists after the expiry date, use the List for function to remove your food at the relevant time.

⚠️ If you have an item with today’s "Use By" date, select “until midnight”. 

Remember, "Use By" dates are a legal requirement for sharing food safely. "Best Before" dates are not legally binding and just indicate quality.

Finalise pickups

Please mark each food item as ''picked-up''. Either choose Unlist this directly in Messages with requesters, or find the item in My Listings and choose Someone is collecting this.

As well as providing transparency for business donors to see who is consuming the food they donate (and to be able to trace it for product recalls), this important process enables us to accurately calculate how much food you've all saved! Plus, it makes the job of distributing food easier as you can track who has requested what!

Not enough requests?

Don't worry. There are a few things you can do, check out our tips and tricks to getting more requests.