Food Waste Hero: maximum collection slots

At Olio, we want to ensure that as much food is saved from going to waste as possible, whilst enabling as many people as possible to take part in FWH collections.

How often can I collect food as a Food Waste Hero?

We’ve changed the way slot limits work to ensure as much food as possible is rescued from our business partners, and to offer more flexibility to our FWHs. As of November 2023, collection slots are classed as "Limited" or "Unlimited".

Limited slots

You can have a total of 7 limited slots at any one time.

You can have a maximum of 2 limited collections per day. This can be made up of 1 ongoing + 1 one-off collection or 2 one-off collections.

You will see an error message on the Volunteer Hub if you try to claim more than 7 limited slots at any one time.

Unlimited slots

You can claim as many unlimited slots as you would like, so long as you can safely redistribute all the food you collect. Unlimited slots are at businesses where the collections tend to be smaller or the collections are at shorter notice.

Food safety procedures must be followed. When you claim a new collection slot on a day when you already have a collection slot, you will be asked to confirm that you have space to safely store and re-distribute an additional collection. 

Please only claim additional collections if you can attend all the collections on time.

Can 2 people in the same household collect on the same day?

No. FWHs living in the same household are not permitted to have collections on the same day, regardless of whether they are limited or unlimited slots. This includes, but is not limited to: one-off slots in conjunction with permanent slots, multiple permanent slots, and/or multiple one-off slots. This is to ensure that as many FWHs as possible have the chance to claim slots and slots are shared equally within the community. 

How can I tell if a collection is limited or unlimited?

The Volunteer Hub will prevent you from claiming more than 7 limited collections. If a collection is unlimited, you’ll see a label on the Volunteer Hub (like the below):

Olio reserves the right to change a collection from a business to limited (or unlimited) at any time.

Does Olio set the same collection slot limits in rural and urban areas?

Currently, the slot limit logic is set by business, not by location. This means that the slots at a business will either be limited slots or unlimited slots. We hope to be able to change this in the future.

Can I ask a Food Waste Hero to drop one or more of their collection slots in favor of another FWH without slots?

No, we kindly ask our Food Waste Heroes and Squad Captains not to pressure any FWH to drop their collection slots.

If you believe a FWH is breaking any Olio's guidelines, please just reach out to the Customer Satisfaction team by submitting an Issue form on the Volunteer Hub, and we will investigate the matter.

Can a Food Waste Hero claim more limited collections than allowed?

As of May 2024, the Olio system automatically blocks Food Waste Heroes from claiming more collection slots than permitted.

However, we know that some Food Waste Heroes might have claimed more than 2 limited collection slots per day before we implemented this automation.

Given Olio has a small team with limited resources, we have decided not to retroactively investigate these users. Instead, we are relying on the system to automatically correct the issue over time as these Food Waste Heroes will pause/skip or unassign from their collections.