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.
If you'd like a refresher, you can re-watch FWH Training Videos on YouTube.
Share widely
- Share as widely as possible, ideally giving 2 - 3 items per requester, to ensure that as many people as possible can benefit.
- You can choose to give priority to newbies (using the ''show to all users'' drop-down - and setting a delay when you list) so they have a great experience!
- Try a ''pre-listing'' in the morning, to make local OLIOers 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 as early as possible, for as long as possible. Collecting late, then not sharing til 11pm will make it difficult for other OLIOers 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
Please don't add a listing for each food item, or bundle all your collection items into one listing.
🥪 E.g. if you have: 10 cheese sandwiches and 3 vegan sandwiches, 5 salads, 20 apples and 30 bananas.
❌ Don't add 68 listings, one each item, or 1 listing containing all items, or 2 listings for packaged and unpackaged food....
✅ Post 1 listing of ''Sandwiches'', 1 of ''Salads'', and 1 of ''Fruit'', and use the Description field to add more information.
📸 Make each listing appealing and use a nice, clear photograph showing the best before or use-by date
Use the "collection slot" drop-down menu to find the right slot so that food collected is accurately tracked against your slot.
If you have many, check for the correct DAY at the beginning of the slot. This is critical to enable us to keep track of the food, and will be shown to your whole squad in the group chat to display the amazing work you’re doing! Take a look at our video tutorial on how to do this.
*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.
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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.
⏰ 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”.
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!
