FWH Food Safety: All the rules
How to use this document
This is a one-stop shop for our Food Waste Heroes to check food safety rules and possible penalties for breaking these rules.
How the penalties work
In everyone’s best interest, food safety is paramount to the success of the Food Waste Hero programme. This is why we monitor food safety closely and penalise FWHs who do not comply with our food safety policies.
📢 Reminders. This is a communication from Olio to remind you of a rule that we believe is not being followed. Reminders are generally sent for rules that are low-risk and unintentional. Reminders are recorded and failure to improve can lead to the following formal penalties.
⚠️ Formal warning. This is like a yellow card. After the first warning you will be removed from your current Squad Captain positions. If you collect a second formal warning within 6 months, your account will be permanently banned from the FWH programme.
🔴 Immediate FWH ban. This is like a red card. You will not be able to volunteer as a FWH with Olio.
Olio will consider reinstating FWH status for users who have been banned for 3 months or more, maintain a rating of 4 stars or higher, and whose bans were due to specific reasons such as missed collections or food safety issues (e.g., placing food on unsanitary surfaces, not including dates on pictures, sending non-FWHs to collect, failing to provide allergen information, false reporting, food on the floor, no-contact pickups, sharing chilled food after 24 hours, sharing from unregistered addresses/multiple locations, sharing past the use-by date).
PLEASE NOTE: Even if some bans can be lifted after 3 months, any warning received in the last six months remains active. This means that if your ban has been removed and you have an active warning (from the last 6 months), and you break one of our rules, your account will be banned straight away.
Regulatory requirements
By law, anyone who regularly handles food must register as a food business with their local authority. Olio has exclusive arrangements in some countries which means your Olio FWH registration is all you need to regularly share food from your home.
✅ UK
In the UK, FWHs are not required to register with the local authority as your FWH status allows you to legally collect & share food on the Olio app.
⚠️ Republic of Ireland
FWHs are required to register with their local Health Service Executive branch (HSE) before signing up for any Olio FWH collections. Attending a collection without first registering with your HSE will result in a formal warning.
✅ All other countries
There are no official registration requirements for volunteers to collect and redistribute food, but the Olio food safety policies must still be strictly applied.
At the collection site/location
📢 Hot food must be collected at 63°C or hotter. If hot food is not in hot storage at the time of collection or if you think the food is not hot enough, ask a member of staff to check the temperature. If the food is below 63°C, you must reject it. Reports of food unfit for consumption will result in reminder messages and frequent reports will result in a ban from the FWH programme.
Full instructions on how to share hot food
🔴 Only registered FWHs are permitted to collect food. Sending someone who is not a trained FWH to collect the food will result in an immediate ban from the FWH programme.
Transit
📢 Chilled and frozen food must be refrigerated/placed in a freezer as soon as possible and always within 1.5 hours of collection. Reports of food unfit for consumption will result in reminder messages and frequent reports will result in a ban from the FWH programme.
*Food collected frozen must have a label showing the date it was frozen and a new use-by/ best before date
📢 Hot food must be redistributed within 1.5 hours of collection OR refrigerated once hand warm and then redistributed within 24 hours. Reports of food unfit for consumption will result in reminder messages and frequent reports will result in a ban from the FWH programme.
Storage & home hygiene
📢 Fridge temperature must be set at a max. temperature of 5°C. You can leave a small thermometer like this one in your fridge to make sure it’s always at the right temperature. Reports of food unfit for consumption will result in reminder messages and frequent reports will result in a ban from the FWH programme.
Frozen food
⚠️ Only freeze items that are labelled "suitable for freezing".
⚠️ Only freeze food within the "Use By" date
⚠️ Prior to freezing, cover the existing "Use By" date completely with a self-adhesive label which states “Frozen on [date of freezing], Best before: [enter day/month]”
❗️⚠️ A formal warning will be issued if these guidelines are not followed.
Full instructions on how to freeze food collected
*This rule does not apply to FWHs in the Republic of Ireland where food cannot be frozen and will result in a ban from the FWH programme.
Suitable Surfaces
✅ Food must be placed, stored, and photographed on a hard, wipeable/washable surface at all times, such as a kitchen countertop or table. Crates, clean cardboards, plastic bags or disposable papers are acceptable as long as they are placed on a kitchen countertop or table.
⚠️ Food cannot be placed, stored or photographed on anything that is an unsanitary surface, or similar. This includes, but isn’t limited to: floors, laps, sofas, chairs, blankets, beds, or loose on any car surface. If we believe the food has been on an unsanitary surface, it will result in a formal warning.
🔴 Food (even in packets) can never be placed, stored or photographed on the floor. This includes, but isn’t limited to: rugs, carpets, tiles, linoleum or wooden flooring. This also includes anything that resembles a flooring surface, such as carpet cut-offs, single tiles or similar. Listing photos that show food on the floor or a resembling surface will result in an immediate ban from the FWH programme.
Why food (even if packaged) can’t be left on the floor or on soft surfaces?
❌ Example of unsuitable surface
For more information, please see How to share food safely?
🙏 Please note, the enforcing of these rules are not a comment on the overall cleanliness of your home, we do appreciate they appear strict, but we must ensure food safety.
No contact pickups
✅ You can leave ambient food in a closed plastic box to be collected by requesters.
✅ You can leave chilled food in a cool box or in a cool bag inside a regular plastic box for up to 30 minutes.
🔴 No contact pickups for hot food are not allowed and will result in a ban for the FWH programme.
🔴 Leaving food in anything that is not a plastic container or cooling box will result in a ban from the FWH programme.
*Chilled food that has not been picked up on time must be discarded so please agree with the requesters on a precise pickup time to avoid any food waste.
✅ Example of a suitable closed plastic box for ambient food
✅ A cool bag can be placed inside the plastic box to hold chilled food
✅ Example of a suitable cool box for chilled food
🔴FWHs must never share food from a public location and should share food from their registered home location. When you sign up to be a FWH, you confirm that your kitchen facilities are fit for purpose. If food is shared from an unregistered kitchen, we have no guarantee that the facility is fit for purpose so sharing food in a public location or from an unregistered home will result in an immediate ban from the FWH programme.
* To update your home location, you can use the issue report form to notify us
🔴 FWHs must have running hot water and a clean surface area in their kitchen. Not having the required facilities will result in an immediate ban from the FWH programme.
🔴 Never share food past its “Use By” date. Sharing or intending to share food (even for animal feed) past the “Use By” date will result in an immediate ban from the FWH programme.
Full explanation on expiration dates
🔴 Chilled food with a “Best Before” date or any undated chilled food must be shared within 24 hrs of collection. Sharing or intending to share this food after 24 hrs will result in an immediate ban from the FWH programme.
Listing food on the app
✅ 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.
Check out our best practices guidelines
Olio’s rules are in place because the FWH program is subject to UK food law which requires that food is not supplied past the stated use by date. The only way to guarantee that a use by date is correct is to have it clearly shown in the photograph (because a different date could be written in the description or title)
📢 Loose bakery items must be labelled, as "loose bakery items". Listing these items with ANY other listing name will result in a reminder message to correctly list the items.
Full instructions about loose bakery items
📢 Never list items past the “Use By” date. Leaving listings on the app past the “Use By” date will result in the listing being removed and a reminder message
✅ Any available date, such as the Best Before or Use by dates, must always be shown clearly in the photo(s) of the listing, this can be in a second photo if the date is not on the front of the packaging or in an easy to see place.
*If the item does not have a date, please mention it in the title of your listing to avoid your listing being reported.
⚠️ Listing without a clear use by or best before date in the photo(s) will result in a formal warning.
As of July 2024, we are testing new solutions in regards to food safety rules:
📱 We are now sending Olio Little Helper messages to warn FWHs about missing dates in pictures, unsanitary surfaces, and photographing food on the floor (instead of sending an email).
🗓️ We will give a grace period of 5 days for people breaking these rules before sending another warning/ban to give enough time for retraining.
❗There are some exceptions, such as hot food, freshly prepared food, loose bakery items or whole/ unprocessed fruit & vegetables - as these do not always come with printed dates OR if the date is too small to be photographed, such as with Pret A Manger Fresh food OR when the store has placed the reduced label over the date.
🙏 Please check this FAQ where you will find more detailed information on how to show the UBD/BB dates when listing
⚠️ You must provide the allergen information of an item when asked. This will usually be available on the product itself so all you need to do is reply with a picture of the ingredients list. Refusing to provide allergen info will result in a formal Warning.
Important note: to prevent cross-contamination, make sure any protective packaging is intact
⚠️ Bulk food from caterers or restaurants must be redistributed to at least 2 requesters and portioned into their own containers. Please refer to the full FAQ for more details.
How does Olio find out about rule breaking?
Flag reports
Submitted by users. If a flag report indicates rules are broken, Olio can take action.
Issue reports/ emails
Submitted by users. If a report indicates rules are broken, Olio can take action.
Proactive search
Eg. searching for listings that are on the app past their “Use By” date.
🔴 A word on false reporting
Every day, we receive thousands of invalid reports that take valuable time away from our team and prevent them from addressing legitimate issues. Continued or malicious reports of other people's content that do not violate our rules may result in the reporting user being banned.