Collection times

How are Food Waste Hero collection times decided?

We know that the time of a collection is really important, as Food Waste Heroes need enough time to get home, list the items, and share the collection with local Olio-ers. That's why Olio will always suggest that evening collections take place as early as possible.

However there's lots of factors to consider when we partner with a new business, and it is ultimately the business who decides the collection time. This is because of factors such as opening hours, discounting process, busy periods for staff, and the preparation time for the donation.

This means that some of our collections can be quite late in the evening (10pm or later). We understand that this can make sharing the items more challenging. However, many of these collections are claimed and shared successfully every day, and we encourage our community to give it a go!

Here's are our top tips if you are eager to claim an evening collection:

🙋‍♀️ Squad chats: When you claim a new evening collection, you will have a group of people to support you. Ask in the squad chat if anyone has advice about this particular evening collection. Teamwork!

📲 Prelistings: Add a prelisting (a personal listing on Olio before your scheduled collection) to let local Olio-ers know you're expecting to collect and share food later on. [You can find more information about this here]

⏰ Collection time: Aim to arrive a couple of minutes before the collection time, so that you can take the items home as soon as they are ready. This will maximise the time you have to list and share the items.

🥖 Use-by: Prioritise listing all of the items with a 'Use-by' date, as these must be shared before midnight. When you are short on time, remember that Best Before items can be shared the next day.

Plus, these late collections (10pm or later) are now unlimited, meaning Food Waste Heroes can claim as many as they can manage, as long as the food can be safely redistributed.