Olio began working with Central Co-op and Midcounties Co-op separately in 2024.
In January 2026, Central Co-op and Midcounties Co-op joined forces, (along with Chelmsford Star), to create a stronger, purpose-led co-operative society that serves communities across the UK – OurCoop.
That means that Olio is now helping OurCoop maximise impact across ~400 stores – by redistributing surplus food from those locations into local communities.
How it all started
OurCoop builds on a strong legacy of sustainability and community action. Across its combined organisations, the Society has made long-term commitments to reducing waste, supporting communities and operating responsibly.
Notably, those commitments include achieving zero-to-landfill status in 2010, aligned with the government’s waste hierarchy framework; working with food waste charities from 2017; reducing the number of items going to waste across its Your Co-op Food stores by 21% since 2019; and winning Sustainability Initiative of the Year at the 2025 Grocer Gold Awards, recognising their commitment to a fairer, more sustainable future, and their work with Olio (among other impressive initiatives).
Over time however, food waste reduction targets across the organisations became more and more ambitious. In 2024, the teams realised that through a community redistribution partner like Olio, they could get more surplus food to people more quickly, at scale, and with minimal extra operational burden for staff.
With food insecurity rising and communities under growing financial pressure, the cost of living crisis has sharpened this focus further. Olio’s hyper-local community volunteer model – perfect for short dated, same day “Use by” products, in addition to ambient “Best before” items – offered exactly the kind of solution that they had both been looking for.
Fast forward to 2026, and Olio is now supporting the new OurCoop entity with its food surplus redistribution work across ~400 stores.
The problem Olio is helping OurCoop solve
Olio’s Food Waste Heroes Programme helps retailers tackle two pressing issues – food waste and food poverty – by connecting surplus food from stores directly with local people who need it, free of charge.
At its heart, our partnership is simple: food-safety trained Olio volunteers, known as Food Waste Heroes, visit OurCoop stores at the end of each trading day to collect good, edible food that hasn’t sold that day.
Volunteers then take that food home, store it safely, and list it on the Olio app so it’s instantly available for local app users to collect. With this model, surplus food can often make its way to local dinner tables in as little as 30 minutes.
Free food listed on Olio is for everyone – which means our users don’t have to declare themselves as “in need”. However, we know from in-app surveys that many people requesting free food on Olio are often under significant financial strain themselves, and many are using Olio to supplement what they access from food banks.
A simple process for store colleagues (with a huge impact)
With Olio’s model, surplus food collections from OurCoop stores are carried out by local volunteers, many of whom live within a short walk of the store. This is key in reducing the time between food leaving store shelves and reaching someone’s table, while lowering the operational burden on store colleagues.
All store colleagues need to do each day is press a button via Olio’s store software, Olio Collect, to let volunteers know there’s surplus food for them to collect.
Once collected, volunteers then use Olio’s app to add food as listings, creating a way for app users in every OurCoop catchment area to see what surplus food is available for free near them.
With every item of food added to the app, OurCoop also gets a digital trail of data on food volumes rescued, environmental impact, and community reach – allowing both organisations to measure, report and continuously improve performance.
What we’ve been able to deliver together
The partnership was built around clear objectives: to reduce food waste across the OurCoop estate, to get good food to people who need it as efficiently as possible, and to deliver measurable environmental and social impact.
Since 2024, our collective partnership has resulted in:
In addition to the positive social impact, we’ve also been able to deliver significant environmental impact:
🛁 1.2 billion litres of water saved
☁️ 7.1 million kg of CO₂ emissions avoided
🚗 26.1 million car miles removed from the road
🌳 329,000 trees’ equivalent planted*
*Trees removing CO2 from the atmosphere for one year
Together, we’ve demonstrated that a community, volunteer-led model can operate effectively at scale across a large retail estate, delivering both social and environmental returns simultaneously.
Hear it from the OurCoop team
We’re making a tangible difference
A great success