Sharing food as a Food Waste Hero can feel daunting, especially on evening collections when you've got limited time to get food out the door. Don't worry, you'll soon get the hang of it 🙌

These guidelines will help you share safely, quickly and fairly. If you'd like a refresher, you can re-watch the FWH training videos on YouTube.

Remember, food you collect from a business can only be shared with people who request it via the Olio app. If you'd like to share with other groups, please ask them to download Olio and request there 🙌

Collections can be hectic, but try to list as early as you can and for as long as you can. Collecting late and then not sharing until 11pm makes it harder for other Olio-ers to see your listings and request them 😅

There are a few things to keep in mind so the food you share is safe for others.

For a full set of guidelines, see our FAQ on sharing safely with others on Olio.

You can group items together and choose how to list the food you collect.

📸 The Use By or Best Before date of each item must be clear in the listing photo, so only group items that share the same date.

We ask for a clear photo of the date because some items have been listed with the date hidden, to share food past its Use By. That isn't allowed.

🥪 For example, if you have 10 cheese sandwiches with a Use By of 26/06 and 5 salads with a Use By of 27/06:

Choose the matching collection slot on the Available Collection Slots screen, so the food you collect is tracked against your slot.

The screen shows the date, time and address of each collection, with the most recent slot at the top. You can also ask the app to remember your selected slot for 60 minutes, to speed up adding listings.

A slot appears in the app 10 hours before its start time and stays visible until 24 hours after, so you've time to add Best Before items the day after your collection.

For example, a collection at 20:00 on 12 January shows in the app at 10:00 on 12 January and disappears at 20:00 on 13 January.

You can't list non-food items against a collection slot yet, so if you collect non-food from a business, please post it as Food instead.

To help us calculate Olio's impact accurately, tell us how many items are in each listing. For example, a listing of 5 sandwiches, tap 5; a listing of 20 bananas, type 20.

🛒 You can use our Baskets function to keep track of who wants what, and how much.

Baskets isn't a stock counter, so it won't automatically reduce how many items are left as you give them out.

📸 Every listing must show the Use By or Best Before date in the photo. This doesn't apply to food without labels, like hot food, loose pastries, or loose fruit and veg.

⏰ Use the List for function so your listing unlists automatically at the right time.

If an item's Use By date is today, select until midnight.

Use By dates are a legal requirement for sharing food safely, and food must not be shared after midnight on that date. Best Before dates show when quality is at its best, and food can be shared afterwards as long as it looks and smells fine.

Mark each item as picked up. Find it in My listings and choose Someone is collecting this.

This gives business donors transparency over who receives their food, and lets us trace it for product recalls. It also helps us calculate how much food you've all saved, and makes distributing food easier because you can see who requested what.

Don't worry, there are a few things you can try. See our tips for getting more requests.