Become a Food Waste Hero
Do you love food, hate waste, and want to save food from your local shops and cafes?
Food Waste Heroes
What do Food Waste Heroes do?
An OLIO Food Waste Hero (FWH) is an OLIOer who picks up unsold surplus food from businesses to save it from going to waste. Each FWH is part of a team of volunteers who take responsibility in turns collecting the unsold food, bringing the food home, listing it on the OLIO app, and redistributing to their neighbours, who pick up the food (usually within a matter of hours).
Everyone can rescue unsold surplus food from a local business. This can either be a business that is already partnering with OLIO or a new business!
Our Food Waste Heroes (FWH) programme is making a massive difference to the amount of surplus food redistributed via OLIO. We have thousands of FWHs actively rescuing unsold food at the end of the day from hundreds of business locations, with more joining every single week. This unsold food is immediately added to OLIO and shared within the community to ensure that no good food goes to waste.
As a FWH we would match you with your local street food market, farmers’ market, shop, café, bakery, deli, green grocer, hotel or restaurant – who absolutely love the programme! Once matched, you would collect any unsold surplus food at the end of your designated day(s) and would then use OLIO to share the rescued food within your local community. We’ll also put you in an OLIO chat group with other local FWHs so you can all work together collectively, share success stories, and cheer each other on.
If there are no partnering businesses in your neighbourhood you can become a Food Waste Hero Squad Captain and start your own group with a business of your choice!
FWHs enjoy the thrill of tangibly rescuing food that would have otherwise been thrown away, the camaraderie of joining a FWH ‘squad’, and the joy of handing over delicious food to their neighbours. Trust us, it’s an amazing feeling!
Why become a Food Waste Hero?
People become a Food Waste Hero for many different reasons but they each share a commitment to reducing food waste at scale. It is extremely rewarding because distributing large quantities of surplus food via the app means you get to see exactly what food you are preventing from going to waste. In the process of sharing our FWHs also get to meet a lot of new people in their neighbourhood, people from all walks of life. Finally, FWHs are able to keep up to 10% of their haul for themselves, so they can enjoy some of the delicious rescued food too!
How to become a Food Waste Hero?
Becoming a Food Waste Hero is very easy. Simply tap the button below to sign up! You will get access to the Volunteer Hub where you will find a link to join our private OLIO Volunteer Facebook Group which is an exciting place where all our Volunteers come together to share inspiring stories, ask questions and to connect with people in their local area.
Here’s an example of some shops our Food Waste Heroes pick up surplus food from.
I really love being able to do something so simple that makes such a difference. When I pass over a bag of food to someone who's really appreciative and happy to have it I feel a deep dance of purpose and community.
- Chelsea from Chorley 🇬🇧