Olio

Olio may charge partners up to £25 for infrequent one-off collections, but most fees are much lower, often under 5% of that.

Does Olio charge businesses £25 per Food Waste Hero collection?

Newcomers can become FWHs because many do great work. Olio supports them with guidelines, training & monitoring, not just ratings.

Why does Olio let new or unrated people become Food Waste Heroes?

FWH rules on slots, skips, suspensions, sharing limits & ratings.

Food Waste Hero General Policies

Olio asks Food Waste Heroes to accept all collections, no matter how small, so surplus food isn’t wasted.

Do I have to pick up a food collection, even if it’s small?

FWH can collect from places like supermarkets, catering, travel hubs, convenience stores and TV/film sets, food types and times vary by sector.

Where can Food Waste Heroes collect surplus food from?

Mostly no, as Olio aims for local collections to be done by foot, bike or public transport. Cars sometimes needed for large or distant collections.

Do I need a car to do Food Waste Hero collections?

Olio uses warnings, suspensions, or bans when FWH rules are broken—report issues via the app, and submit appeals if needed.

What happens when Food Waste Heroes break the rules?

Stores get a phone call 60 mins before a scheduled pickup to confirm surplus. Only staff confirm via keypad.

What is the automated phone call before store collections?

Keep collections local — ideally within 2 km — and never travel more than 1.5 hours with collection food.

How far can I travel for Food Waste Hero collections?

This label shows that food has definitely been confirmed for a collection slot.

What does the “Surplus Food Confirmed” label mean?

If you don’t collect or don’t list items, you’ll need to respond in squad chat, otherwise your slots may be removed.

Missed Collection Process

You’ll get a reminder 10 hours before your collection, confirm with a quick Yes/No so your squad knows if you can attend.

Collection Reminder Messages

Share food safely: label allergens, handle hot/cold/frozen items properly, respect use‑by dates, and store in a clean, suitable place.

How to Share Food Safely with Olio

Always share allergen info when requested for pre-packed, non-pre-packed & loose items. Use the allergen page or reject items with no info.

Allergens Guide for Food Waste Heroes

Hot food must be ≥ 63 °C, collected from approved businesses, redistributed in 1.5 h (or cooled & used within 24 h), no contact-less pickups.

How can I safely collect and share hot foods on Olio?

Indicate how many items are in your listing, so Olio can calculate your food‑saving impact correctly.

How should I count my collection items?

List unlabelled baked goods as “Loose bakery items” only. Please don’t name them.

How Do I List Unlabelled Loose Bakery Items on Olio?

FWHs can keep 10% of collected food - no need to list it. The other 90% must go on the app to be shared fairly with the community.

How Much Food Can I Keep from My Collection?

If you can't share all food, donate it, feed pets, compost it, or bin it. Never share food past its use-by date, without allergen info or for Animal Feed

What Should I Do With Surplus Food I Wasn't Able to Share?

All food must be shared via the Olio app, even with those in need. Direct giving isn’t allowed to ensure safety, traceability, and support.

Can I Share Food from My Collection with Homeless People?

‘0 Listings’ messages flag possible listing issues - like wrong slot, timing, or relisting. They help track impact and improve the process.

Why Am I Getting ‘0 Listings’ Messages in Squad Chat?

Follow strict freezing and thawing rules to safely share frozen food. Label properly, use within time limits, and never refreeze thawed items.

How Do I Safely Handle Frozen Food as a FWH?

The FWH leaderboard highlights top sharers each month. Track your impact and see rankings by volunteer and postcode in your dashboard.

Where Can I See the FWH Leaderboard Results?

FWHs must follow food safety rules. Olio’s insurance covers illness if you follow guidelines, but not injuries during volunteer activity.

Who’s Responsible for Food Safety, and What Does Olio’s Insurance Cover?

Food must be kept off floors and soft surfaces to avoid contamination and pests. Even crates must be placed on a table or kitchen work surface.

Why Must Food Be Kept Off the Floor?

Follow key safety rules to avoid suspension: store food right, meet hygiene standards, and never share food past its Use By date.

Food Waste Hero Food Safety Penalties

For no-contact pickups: ambient food must be sealed, chilled food in a cool bag (max 30 mins), and hot food must never be left out.

How Can I Safely Do No-Contact Pickups as a Food Waste Hero?

Olio’s rules follow expert advice from its UK Primary Authority. UK FWHs don’t need to register; ROI volunteers must register first.

Food Safety Regulations and Regulators

In Singapore, no food past any visible date can be shared. Chill food properly, list expiry dates, and store at 4°C or below.

Food safety in Singapore 🇸🇬

Only take what you can manage. Prioritise Use By items, ask your squad for help, or switch to a smaller slot if this happens often.

What If There’s More Food Than I Can Store or Share?

Charities take priority for slots. If a charity stops collecting, the slot may return to Olio, but we're unable to reassign it to the original FWH.

What Happens When a Charity Takes Over My Slot?

Olio only enforces rules that impact safety or fairness. Poor titles, no date in description, or packaged hand-held items aren’t violations.

What Isn’t Considered Rule-Breaking for Food Waste Heroes?

Assume good intent, stay respectful, and avoid escalation. Flag clearly offensive messages. Serious issues may lead to removal from the program.

What Should I Do If I Don’t Get Along with Another FWH?

User's can appeal warnings, suspensions, or bans within 1 week. Use the form provided. Reviews take 48–72 hrs.

How Do I Appeal a Warning, Suspension or Ban?

In April 2023, we made some important changes to our volunteering roles. We’re removing a couple of our existing positions.

Updating our Volunteer Roles at Olio

FWHs follow stricter rules to protect safety, meet business partner standards, and because they share on Olio’s behalf under food business laws.

Why Don’t Some Food Rules Apply to Personal Listings?

ID verification

What is an “auto-confirmed” collection?

Information about the Food Waste Hero Programme

Food Waste Heroes

You’re auto-added to the Squad Chats for the store once you claim a slot.

How do Squad Chats work?

Everything Food Waste Heroes need to know about the Squad Captain role, what it involves, how to become one, how to step down, and what happens if a Captain becomes…

What is a Squad Captain, and how do I become or step down?

Description (recommended): Becoming or stepping down as a Squad Captain, what the role involves, and how Squad Chats work, your squad's group chat for Food Waste Heroes.

Squad Chats & Squad Captains

Food Waste Heroes collect unsold surplus food locally via app-claimed slots, with no experience or vehicle needed; pick what suits you.

What is a Food Waste Hero, and how do I get started?

Your Food Waste Hero ID is listed under your active collection slots.

Where do I find my Food Waste Hero ID?

Set time limits, take breaks, set boundaries, communicate, and remember volunteering is voluntary - your wellbeing matters.

How can I take care of myself as a Food Waste Hero?

New to the programme? Start here. How to become a Food Waste Hero (FWH), find your FWH ID, log in to the Volunteer Hub and look after yourself while volunteering,

Getting started and the basics of the Food Waste Hero programme

Reasons you might not see any collection slots near you, or can't claim one you can see, and what to do about each.

Why can't I find or claim a collection slot?

Assigned slots appear 10 hours pre-start and stay visible until 24 hrs after. If you’re assigned and still can’t see it, please report it.

Why isn't my assigned slot showing when I list food?

Don’t worry, if Olio’s Little Helper cancels your slot, it isn’t your fault.

Why has my collection slot been cancelled?

If there’s an issue with your collection, such as no food, wrong time, or staff confusion, please report it via the Volunteer Hub and inform your squad.

What should I do if there’s a problem with my collection?

How can I fix login problems with the Volunteer Hub?

Having trouble? Fixes for when you can't find or claim a collection slot, your assigned slot isn't showing, a slot has been cancelled, you've missed a collection, or something's gone wrong at the store.

Troubleshooting: when something goes wrong							

There are ongoing slots (happening regularly) and one-off slots (single helpers); you can try a one-off before committing.

What types of collection slots are there for Food Waste Heroes?

Claim or unassign a collection slot any time through the Volunteer Hub.

How to claim or unassign a collection slot

You can't share a regular slot, but if you skip or unassign from it in the Volunteer Hub, another trained Food Waste Hero can claim/cover it.

Can someone else attend my collection on my behalf, if I can’t go?

If you can’t make a collection, skip it or swap with another FWH via the Volunteer Hub

How do I skip or swap my collection slot (including one-offs)?

You can have up to 3 collections on the same day of any type (ongoing or one-off). Ensure you can store & redistribute safely.

What is the maximum amount of collections can I claim?

Collection times are set by businesses. Some may be late, but prelisting, teamwork, and prioritizing use-by items help you share successfully.

How Are Collection Times Decided for Food Waste Heroes?

Collection times may change on UK bank holidays, you’ll get a reminder, but please always double-check.

Bank holiday schedule for Food Waste Heroes

Save Me Collections let you keep some (or all) food from harder-to-fill slots; you still share via the app and follow impact-tracking rules

Save Me Collections

Pilot collections test new business partners. Only FWHs with clean records can join; expect extra support and possible delays.

What are pilot collections?

Real-time collections appear same-day with food confirmed. Look for “Surplus Food Confirmed” in the Hub. Only go after claiming & confirming.

Real-time Collections

If an ongoing slot is unclaimed, a message is sent to the squad and it becomes a one-off slot in the Volunteer Hub for anyone to claim.

What happens when a collection slot goes unclaimed?

Everything about collection slots: the slot types, claiming, unassigning, skipping or swapping, one-offs, how slot times are decided, notifications, and special slots like Save Me, pilot and real-time collections.

 Collection slots: claiming, swapping & scheduling

Use clear photos, good titles, accurate descriptions, correct sharing categories & timely responses to improve your Olio listing success.

How to create an Olio Listing in 10 steps

You can choose for your listing to go live in 5-60 mins instead of immediately, so you can finish uploading before seeing requests.

How can I schedule my Olio listing to go live later?

Use clear photos, pre-list early, offer flexible pickup times and share widely, to boost listing views and requests.

How can I get more requests for my collection listings?

Pre-listings let you post ahead of a scheduled collection, so neighbours know when you're likely to list, so they can be ready to request. Especially helpful for late evening slots!

What are pre-listings, and how do I use them on Olio?

Baskets help FWHs track who’s collecting what. Allocate quantities, update totals, and mark baskets as collected after pickup.

What Are Baskets, and How Do I Use Them?

Learn how to list, share, and manage surplus food safely and fairly as a Food Waste Hero using the Olio app.

Food Waste Hero Best Practices

How to list the food you collect: creating a listing, pre-listings, scheduling, listing loose or unlabelled items, using Baskets, getting more requests, and best practices for sharing well.

Creating and managing listings

Find answers and get help from Intercom Support and Community Experts

Conversations you've started through the messenger will appear here.

No conversations created by you

Try using different keywords or checking for typos.

No conversations found

Title

This site employs cookies and other technologies that we and our third party vendors use to monitor and record personal information about you and your interactions with the site (including content viewed, cursor movements, screen recordings, and chat contents) for the purposes described in our Cookie Policy. By continuing to visit our site, you agree to our {websiteTermsLink}, {privacyPolicyLink} and {cookiePolicyLink}.

This site uses cookies and similar technologies ("cookies") as strictly necessary for site operation. We and our partners also would like to set additional cookies to enable site performance analytics, functionality, advertising and social media features. See our {cookiePolicyLink} for details. You can change your cookie preferences in our Cookie Settings.

We use cookies to make our site work and also for analytics and advertising purposes. You can enable or disable optional cookies as desired. See our {cookiePolicyLink} for more details.

Advertising cookies are set by our advertising partners to collect information about your use of the site, our communications, and other online services over time and with different browsers and devices. They use this information to show you ads online that they think will interest you and measure the ads' performance. Social media cookies are set by social media platforms to enable you to share content on those platforms, and are capable of tracking information about your activity across other online services for use as described in their privacy policies.

These cookies enable the website to provide enhanced functionality and personalisation. They may be set by us or by third party providers whose services we have added to our pages. If you do not allow these cookies then some or all of these services may not function properly.

These cookies are necessary for the website to function and cannot be switched off in our systems.

These cookies allow us to count visits and traffic sources so we can measure and improve the performance of our site. They help us to know which pages are the most and least popular and see how visitors move around the site.

You have the right to opt out of the sale of your personal information. See our {cookiePolicyLink} for more details about how we use your data.

Your Privacy Choices

We use cookies to enhance your experience. You can customize your cookie preferences below. See our {cookiePolicyLink} for more details.

Cookie Settings

Empty Help Center

Uh oh. That page doesn’t exist.

Home

Search results

Disappointed

Neutral

Smiley

Thinking...

Searching through sources...

Analyzing...

Tickets submitted through the messenger or by a support agent in your conversation will appear here.

No tickets created by you

No tickets found

Track the progress of all tickets and conversations related to your company.

Customer Portal.

Track the progress of all tickets related to your company.

Tickets portal.

{assigneeName} needs more information from you

Tickets

No access to tickets portal

Search and ask

Find guides, answers, and references.

Skip the search. Describe what you’re trying to do and get a grounded answer.

Browse articles and guides in this topic.

Create your workspace and invite the people you work with.

Set up your account

Build your first workflow and watch it run end to end.

Ship something

Connect the tools your team already uses to bring data in.

Connect your stack

A quick lap of the product so you know where everything lives.

{appName} in 60 seconds

This prototype demo is aware that you are reading “{title}”. It can point you back to the current article, but a production article-aware Fin contract is still follow-up work.

Prototype article-aware answer

Because you already asked about invitations, this prototype demo can add the follow-up: use the role selector before sending each invite to limit access to the teammate responsibilities.

Prototype role-limiting follow-up

This prototype demo suggests starting with your workspace profile, inviting the team members who need access, and then connecting the integrations you use.

Prototype getting-started answer

In this prototype demo, integrations are configured from workspace settings. Choose the integration, connect the account, and review the enabled permissions.

Prototype integrations answer

In this prototype demo, invite teammates from workspace settings, then choose the access each teammate needs before sending the invitation.

Prototype invite-team answer

This prototype demo does not have a scripted answer for that question yet. Try asking how to invite your team or open a source article. No production Fin API was called.

Prototype answer unavailable

I’ve got this page open. Ask me anything about it and I’ll answer from the docs.