Compass & Olio: How we’ve helped cut food waste across Compass catering operations

A bit about Compass

Compass Group is the UK’s leading hospitality and foodservice provider. 

Through its contract catering arm, Compass provides millions of meals at offices, stadiums, hospitals and schools across the country each day. 

Through Olio, Compass can make sure any uneaten food at its sites is safely shared with members of the local community. 

How we started working together

Olio started working with Compass Group UK&I in 2018. We’ve since partnered with Compass brands like Restaurants Associates Group, Eurest, Chartwells and Levy. 

Compass is an industry leader in sustainability – they’ve set ambitious targets to eliminate greenhouse gas emissions across their operations by 2030. They’re also signatories of the Government’s ‘Step Up To The Plate’ pledge, UK Food Waste Roadmap and WRAP Courtauld 2030. 

Compass and Olio began working together to support these food waste reduction goals across Compass businesses and sites. 

Why Olio is a great fit for Compass Group 

Through Olio, Compass and its businesses now have a fully flexible, scalable way to cut out food waste, that covers everything from hot food to loose ingredients, pre-packaged sandwiches, snacks, and more.  

Here’s how it works

1

Pair

Olio pairs each Compass site with food-safety trained volunteers in their local area

2

Prepare

Catering staff at Compass sites set food aside for Olio volunteers to collect 

3

Collect

Volunteers come to Compass sites at an allotted time to collect surplus food

4

Share

Volunteers share food safely with members of the local community via Olio’s app

For Compass, its businesses and their clients, having a way to redistribute hot food has been especially impactful, as they weren’t able to do this before working with Olio.

How we’ve partnered with businesses across Compass group

Restaurant Associates is one Compass business that Olio works closely with, collecting food from its corporate canteen clients across the UK. Restaurant Associates clients include companies across the banking, healthcare, and technology sectors. 

With Olio, those canteens can now make sure any surplus food left at the end of each day benefits people in communities local to them, in line with their CSR targets. 

Plus, Sustainability Managers at those businesses also love that they can see the environmental impact they’re having through cutting out food waste, which Olio shares with them via bespoke quarterly impact reports.

Here’s what the team at Restaurant Associates had to say about working with Olio:

“Olio and its volunteers are great to work with. Volunteers are flexible and fit around our needs and those of our businesses. It’s great to see within our monthly reports the impact our surplus food donations are making to the wider community within the local area”.

Christina Benjamin, London Regional Manager
Restaurant Associates

Start working with Olio today

Are you a contract caterer? Or does your office have a catered canteen? Get in touch with Olio today to see how simple it is to share your surplus food with people in your community.