Olio

[ClarasZoo]

Do you all know about this? Free food. Worth a look.

I'm a Food Waste Hero for Olio. I collect food from Tesco twice a week and give it away on Olio but its always the same few people that request it. I don't know why more people don't use it.

I've used it a few times now and will be using it more often. It's helped me loads when I've been in a pickle food wise and money wise. I think most people are just worried about the stigma or the travel to pick up free food

In my local area there is only the odd loaf of bread. Nothing I would want. I cancelled it after 3 days. It wasnt worth the £1.99 a month for subs.

I use the free app. It’s useful and I’ve collected food. I don’t need to financially, but I prefer not to waste food and I live in a very middle class area so most people don’t want to collect.

Not good in my area mostly mouldy old fruit and veg, I gave away a takeaway once on it as I was sent the wrong meal by mistake (beef which I don’t eat) and had got a refund for it but the person never showed up to collect it no message to cancel just nothing, so I wouldn’t use it again.

I dont know why they say it is free. £24 a year but guess it depends where you live.

Where I am free cycle is similarly useless.

If there had been more exciting options than a boring loaf of bread I might have persevered.

I thought it was free. I've not used it for a while as there was a local charity that collected out of date food from a number of local supermarkets but they've stopped now. Mine only ever seemed to have bread or pastries.

I bet it would be good somewhere like Kensington lol.

It is free- you don’t have to pay!

There is a paid for, and a free option. I use the free version. Someone a couple of roads away from us does a pret collection, so we feast on pret sandwiches for a day a week. It's worth it, if it's convenient to pick up.

I use it to give away, yesterday someone collected a bag of chicken drumsticks and someone else two veggie packs straightaway which fab as freezer needed defrosting but didn’t want to waste the food.

I've only ever seen or used the free version. What does the paid for version do that the free one doesn't?

I’ve given toys away free on it. It was a nightmare. 5 time wasters before someone finally showed up.

There is a Tesco food champion near us. I have looked a few times but the only time I’ve been tempted to ask for something it’s already gone & I haven’t looked since. I felt a bit odd though about the prospect of turning up on someone’s doorstep for a bag of mushrooms & an avocado.

I use this for food and non food. I've even started being a food warrior

@Shambleseya

I'm a Food Waste Hero for Olio. I collect food from Tesco twice a week and give it away on Olio but its always the same few people that request it. I don't know why more people don't use it.

I signed up and tried to use it, but most people were miles away. It's a shame as it's a very good idea .

A tip for using Olio:
Around here most of the shop collections are at 8.30pm and by the time the food has been collected and listed by the Olio volunteer it'll be 9.30pm or later, so that's the time to log on and request things. If it's Use By food rather than Best Before, you also need to be willing to go and collect it from the volunteer by midnight that day.
If you log on at other times of the day it might look like there's not much available.

And it is free. I keep getting a notification to sign up for monthly payments but I'm not really sure what you get extra for the paid version, a map to show local users I think, but each volunteer has a map on the free version anyway.