For most FWH collections, on-site staff use Olio Collect to manually confirm or cancel collections depending on whether there's food available.
This step is sometimes forgotten among the many things on-site staff have to do, meaning you might not get a message ahead of your collection and good food goes to waste.
Auto-confirm is our solution for sites where surplus food is consistently available. Rather than waiting for on-site staff to manually confirm, these collections are automatically confirmed in advance.
Store staff can still cancel on the day if needed. We only turn this feature on when it has been agreed with the donating partner that this is how they would like to work with us, and the data supports that they consistently have surplus food available.
Turning on ‘auto-confirm’ removes a manual step for on-site staff and means that FWHs receive more consistent messages about their collections, and less good food goes to waste.
How do I know if a collection is auto-confirmed?
An auto-confirmed collection will have this label on the Volunteer Hub:
How does Olio decide which collections are auto-confirmed and which ones aren’t?
We're starting by trialling this with a handful of clients - Toby Carvery, Zapp, and some SSP & catering locations - where surplus food is consistently available. We’re starting small so we can monitor it closely before rolling out further.
Before enabling auto-confirm at existing stores, we’ll look at whether they have surplus food available consistently and already regularly interact with Olio Collect. We'll keep a close eye on cancellation rates and collections that are confirmed but have no listings to make sure Food Waste Heroes aren't making unnecessary trips.
Will I still get a notification that the collection has been auto-confirmed?
Yes - you'll get the standard confirmation and cancellation messages in your squad chat as usual.
The site keeps cancelling the collection so they obviously don’t have food every time - what should I do?
No need to report this via the issue report form. We monitor stores with high cancellation rates internally and if a store is consistently cancelling we'll review whether auto-confirm is the right fit for them, and if not, we’ll switch it off.
The site isn’t cancelling collections but when I turn up I’m told there’s nothing to collect - what should I do?
Please report this using the post-collection message you receive after your visit. If we spot a pattern at that store, we'll flag it to the client and review whether auto-confirm is suitable, and if not, we’ll switch it off, as we don’t want to cause unnecessary trips for our FWHs.
How does this impact the post collection message process?
If the store cancels the collection ahead of time, you won't receive a message from Olio's Little Helper.
If the collection isn't cancelled, you'll get a message in squad chat 1.5 hours after the collection time if you haven't added any listings. Tap the button that applies:
✅ Yes, there was food - then add your listings to the app (or you can just add the listings without filling in the report)
❌ No food on arrival
🚫 I didn't go
If you don't respond or list items within 24 hours of the collection start time, the collection will be flagged as missed and your future slots will be removed in line with the missed collection policy.