News Focus
“Can we solve it all? No.
But, do we believe that
billions of small actions
got us into this mess, and
that billions of small
actions can get us back
out again? Absolutely.”
T
he idea for OLIO came when
Tessa Clarke shared with her co-
founder Saasha Celestial-One a story.
When moving back to the UK from
Switzerland, she found herself with
food she wasn’t going to eat.
She didn’t know her neighbours,
so she bundled up her new-born and
toddler, and went out onto the streets
to try to find someone to give it to, but
couldn’t find anyone.
When Clarke shared this story, both
she and Celestial-One were actively
looking to start a business that could
tackle an environmental challenge.
It caused a ‘lightbulb moment’, and
the company was named in an hour
- OLIO, meaning ‘hodgepodge’. Five
months later it launched on the app
store.
Around two months ago, OLIO
dedicated part of their company to
events full-time, as they identified
that there was a real awareness of the
amount of waste caused by the events
industry, not only in food waste but
other perishable items like flowers.
Then, they made a solution.
Anyone who is hosting an event and
wants to negate food waste can ask
OLIO to recruit food-safety trained
local volunteers. These volunteers
then collect any unserved food and
Waste not,
Want not
Olivia Powell
explores OLIO, a
new foodsharing app
that can dramatically
reduce waste at events
store it safely in their domestic
kitchens, where it can be collected
by those in their local community.
Whilst events were previously a tricky
situation in regard to food waste,
with OLIO this is no longer an issue.
Food goes from the event to people
who want it within a couple of hours,
and the entire process is governed by
OLIO’s food safety managers. With
over 3m people fed, and no issues, it
seems like a great solution.
OLIO’s ambitions do not stop there
– they want to completely overhaul
the way we look at food waste, an
eventually make wasting viable
food a social taboo. With 1.5m users
already on the platform, and more
food sharing networks popping up
over the globe, OLIO may be able to
make this goal a reality. In 2018, it
won the UN Momentum of Change
award in recognition of its potential
to significantly mitigate the effects of
climate change.
As founder Saasha Celestial-One
says: “Can we solve it all? No. Are
policy and regulation really important?
Yes. Are we going to solve the climate
crisis with a food sharing app? No. But,
do we believe that billions of small
actions got us into this mess, and that
billions of small actions can get us
back out again? Absolutely.”
December — 13