Collecting from a catered business: what to expect
Olio partners with many catering businesses who supply food to various sites across the country. Catering sites include collections from offices, schools, event spaces, defence sites and stadiums. As an Olio volunteer, you can collect from these sites and redistribute delicious catered food amongst your local community!
We hope you enjoy your collections from the catered business you have decided to collect from! 🥐
Here are some important reminders to ensure these collections are an enjoyable and smooth process for FWHs and catering staff:
1. Confirm you are ready for your collection in your squad chat at least one hour before your scheduled collection time:
- ✅ Please respond to the pre-collection check in message. If you don't get the pre-collection check in message, please type a quick message into the squad at least 1 hour ahead of your collection.
- ⚠️ Attendance is important at offices and canteens as they don’t have other food disposal facilities like larger stores, so it’s vital that we are able to save and list their food on Olio!
2. Respond to the post-collection check in message
If you don’t list next to your collection slot, you will receive a post-collection check in message from Olio’s Little Helper.
Read our FAQ here on how best to respond to this message. In a nutshell, there are 3 possible answers:
🥝 Yes, there was food - please list your items shortly
📞 No, there wasn’t any food - only to be used when the site confirmed there was no food either on the phone or our confirmation system
⚠️ I didn’t go to the collection
- Whilst we work on improving our post collection options, if you believe you should give more detail, please do so in the squad.
3. Raise recurring issues via the Issue Report Form
If you notice recurring issues within your Squad, please raise them in an Issue Report Form by tapping "Report an issue" via the My Collection Slots page on the Volunteer Hub.
Recurring issues include:
- ⏰ Any changes to the collection process or site contact
- 📞 Unable to get through to the site with the phone number provided
- 🥝 Constantly no food available meaning volunteers lose interest
- ⚠️Members of the squad missing their collections or not engaging in the squad chat
4. If a slot is uncovered and nobody will be collecting, please make sure the site is aware
Due to the increase of catering sites that Olio is collecting from and to ensure we are managing site engagement, from September 2023 we are asking our brilliant Squad Captains that if a slot is still unassigned 1 hour before the collection to please call the site to check if there is any surplus and let them know that no one is currently assigned to collect the food.📞 If you do not have the contact number of the site, then you do not need to call ahead.
🥗 If the site confirms that there is surplus food to collect, please attend the collection if you’re free or post in the group chat to ask if any of your fellow FWHs are available rescue the food from going to waste.
Other important points:
⚠️You must share allergen information in your listings and with your requesters. ⚠️
Make sure the items you collect have the allergen information included. These can be:
- Added onto the item as a label
- Given to you on a separate sheet
- On rare occasions (due to the changing menu), the allergens will be linked directly to our website
📦 How will the food be donated? 📦
- For any pre-packaged items, these will generally be donated to you directly and you can pop them into your bags/crates/boxes.
- For cooked, hot or loose food, ideally the site will decant them into individual portions for you to redistribute without having to decanted and reducing the likelihood of cross-contamination. Please note, that in some occasions, the site will donate in large containers, and you may need to decant these at home when redistrbuting.