Our volunteers are busy rescuing and sharing food 365 days a year, but our mission feels especially important during the festive season – when food waste levels are through the roof, yet millions of UK families face bare cupboards.
Olio is for everyone, but when we hear that food shared by our partner businesses has helped someone who’s been struggling, it’s a particularly powerful reminder of just how important our mission is.
For that reason, we wanted to share some real life examples of the transformative effect it can have on people when they collect food shared on Olio.
Here are three ways we often see the Olio sharing magic in action 👇
1. Spreading joy through sharing cooked meals
All food types shared by businesses on Olio are massively appreciated by our community, but we often hear from our volunteers that cooked meals go down the best. Especially at this time of year, when temperatures are dropping, and many families are facing financial hardship.
We think these two messages of thanks, shared by volunteers collecting food from Quilter, an events company, and World Productions, a TV production company, illustrate that pretty well.
If sharing cooked food from your business feels a little daunting, this blog explains how Olio’s food safety management system (built hand-in-hand with experts) keeps food safe on every step of its journey to the community.
2. Building community connections and fighting loneliness
Another thing we often hear from our community – and especially from our volunteers, who take time out of their schedules to rescue and share food from businesses – is that Olio helps them forge stronger connections with local people, and even fight loneliness.
Here’s what one of our brilliant Tesco volunteers from Canterbury had to say on this:
The opportunity to connect with so many wonderful people has been very enriching
An Olio user named Annie also shared this post on our forum earlier this year:
“Olio has given me a purpose, a chance to reach out and help others even in a small way, helped me to feel less powerless and in turn have made friends with and met lovely Olio-ers. So a real positive impact on my life.”
3. Sharing that fantastic zero-waste feeling
Lastly, we know that the vast majority of users on the Olio app hate waste – in fact, lots of them have told us that food waste makes them feel “physically pained”!
That means that they’re always incredibly happy to see businesses taking their social and environmental responsibility seriously, by stopping good food from going to waste.
Here’s what one of our Iceland volunteers had to say about one of her collections last Christmas:
To finish, we wanted to say a big thanks to all our partners and volunteers who make these magic Olio moments possible. Because of them, we’re able to lend a helping hand every day to people all over the country.
Do you work for a business that’s got good food to give away? Speak to our team today to find out how that food could transform Christmas for members of your community this December ✨
Written by Cozzi Baring, Senior Marketing Manager, Olio