Whole Foods Market stores donate surplus food daily at closing time. Collections tend to be a good size! Please bring plenty of carrier bags, and check with your Squad Captain whether you'll need a car.
🤝 Olio collects alongside a charity partner. Generally, Olio takes same-day Use By food and the charity collects food with 1+ day's shelf life. The exact split can vary, so take whatever has been set aside for you.
How to list
Food from Whole Foods Market should be listed according to the following:
Open the containers - Salad Bar Items
Please open the lids of Salad Bar containers when you take your listing photos, even if the packaging is transparent.
Remove the lid of each container for the photo
Display all containers collected in the photos
Add a second photo showing the Use By date
Opening Salad Bar containers is important: Whole Foods packaging often doesn't include a full ingredients list, but that's fine, as long as allergen information is present (see below), you can list the food without it. Showing the contents in the photo means requesters know exactly what they're getting.
Allergen information — essential for all items
⚠️ Before collecting any item, check that allergen information is available — either printed on the container itself or provided on a separate allergen sheet from the store.
If allergen information is not present on the packaging and there is no separate sheet, please do not collect that item. This is a safety requirement and cannot be skipped.
If you're unsure whether allergen info has been provided, check with the store before taking the food.
⚠️ Failure to open Salad Bar containers or failure to provide allergen information may result in a Formal Warning.
Raising recurring issues
If you notice recurring problems at your site (e.g. no allergen info consistently missing, changes to the collection process, or no food available), please raise them via the Issue Report Form by tapping "Report an issue" on the My Collection Slots page in the Volunteer Hub.