Over 150 million meals have been rescued as part of flagship food waste campaign co-ordinated by Olio, FareShare and their partners, which include Booker and One Stop.
Last summer, local sharing app Olio and food redistribution charity FareShare joined forces with a group of UK food businesses to launch a flagship campaign against food waste.
Together with retail and hospitality partners like Booker, One Stop, Tesco, Pret A Manger, Compass, Restaurant Associates, Eurostar, Impact Food Group and more, they set out to rescue and redistribute 200 million meals worth of food, and share it with families across the UK over a 12 month period.
Against the backdrop of the cost of living crisis, which has continued to intensify since the campaign’s launch, Olio and FareShare also wanted the campaign to be a call to action for UK businesses. They wanted more companies to commit to redistributing any spare food to the surrounding communities where they operated, rather than throwing it in the bin.
One year later, Olio and FareShare have just revealed the results of the campaign. Together, they rescued the equivalent of 153 million meals - just over 75% of their target. Despite falling just short of 200 million meals, the teams at Olio and FareShare are still delighted with the outcome.
When asked about the results of the campaign, Saasha Celestial-One, COO and co-founder of Olio, said:
“We always knew our 200 million target was ambitious. And we knew it wasn’t going to be easy. But we’re still incredibly proud to have got over 75% of the way there. The meals we saved through our joint campaign could feed every single person in the UK - twice. So we’re really delighted with that and feel that the campaign has been a resounding success.
If a handful of businesses can club together to share that much food - imagine the phenomenal impact we could have if every food business in the UK did the same.
We’d like to say a huge thank you to the team at FareShare, our campaign partners, and all our wonderful Olio volunteers who made this possible.”
Polly Hoffman, head of retail at FareShare, said: “At FareShare, it’s our deep-rooted belief that there is no excuse for perfectly good food going to waste. So we’re incredibly pleased that our campaign with Olio has delivered such a big impact - providing the equivalent of over 150 million meals to families and people facing food insecurity up and down the UK.
“Sadly, at FareShare, we know all too well that many of those people are struggling to put food on the table so we’re very grateful to all our partners and volunteers for continuing to help us redistribute nutritious, edible food to people that need it.”
Claire de Silva, head of community at Tesco, said: “We are incredibly proud of our partnerships with Olio and FareShare helping us to redistribute food to those who need it most. We remain committed to reducing food waste across our business and supporting communities throughout the UK.”
For every kilogram of food that a business redistributes through Olio or FareShare, they can provide over two healthy meals worth of food for families in their local community.
Although their campaign is over, Olio and FareShare plan to continue their work helping businesses eliminate food waste and alleviating food poverty.
As well as a roster of retail and hospitality clients, FareShare and Olio work jointly with businesses like Tesco and Booker, helping to maximise the amount of food they can redistribute for human consumption
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