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Sustainable waste management company Biffa has partnered with Olio, an innovative food sharing app, to add same-day local food redistribution to its existing toolkit of surplus redistribution and sustainable waste management solutions.
Every year in the UK, billions of potential meals end up in the bin, while 11.3 million people struggle to feed themselves. Biffa’s new collaboration with Olio offers retail and hospitality businesses a unique opportunity to transform their on site surplus food into meaningful support for local communities.
Through this partnership, Biffa rounds out its wider surplus redistribution offering alongside commercial redistributor Company Shop Group, which was acquired by Biffa in 2021. An initial trial across 25 sites at Nando’s, Caffè Nero and Nisa has seen 54kg of food rescued, equating to 7,197 meals for local people, saving 2,258 litres of water and preventing 3,739kg in carbon emissions.
Through the partnership, any edible surplus food remaining at the end of the day can be shared with the community when stores, sites or restaurants close.
Biffa says the process for those businesses is simple – colleagues simply set aside food that didn’t sell or get eaten at the end of the working day for Olio volunteers, known as Food Waste Heroes to collect. Volunteers then take that food home, and upload it to Olio’s app, so people nearby can request and collect it.
The new service rounds out Biffa’s end-to-end food management model, with solutions for same-day redistribution by Olio complemented by Company Shop Group and regular scheduled waste and recycling collections by Biffa.
Biffa customers can now access Olio’s network of volunteers through one single partnership – the latest step made by the company in its mission to enable the circular economy in the UK, and to prevent surplus food from becoming waste.
Businesses can also track the impact that their Olio food donations are having on the local community via Olio’s Partner Hub – including how many meals they’ve rescued, how much water they’ve saved, and the emissions avoided through the food they’ve redistributed.
Amy Hooper, Innovation Manager, Biffa commented: “We’re constantly looking for innovative ways to prevent surplus food from becoming waste in the first place in our mission to enable the UK’s circular economy by reducing waste.
“It’s been an absolute pleasure working with Olio, and we are so excited to be launching this partnership. By joining forces, our unique collaboration enables us to move more food up the waste hierarchy than ever before, helping our customers hit their sustainability goals while saving them money by reducing food waste.
“What sets this initiative apart is that businesses can tackle same-day food surplus, track the positive impact of their contribution, and access end-to-end food surplus and waste management solutions all in one place. Along with Company Shop Group as part of the wider Biffa group, customers will have access to a great range of options to manage their food waste and surplus sustainably with tangible social impact tracking.”
Saasha Celestial-One, co-founder and COO of Olio, added: “We’re so proud to announce our new partnership with Biffa, which is the first of its kind in the commercial waste management sector. Together, we’re able to reduce the weight of good, edible food ending up in Biffa bins, and make sure it feeds local families instead.
“Olio and Biffa are 100 per cent aligned on our mission to build a future without waste, and we’ve been really encouraged to see the results from our trials across Caffè Nero, Nando’s and Nisa locations over the past 12 months. We’re incredibly grateful to the whole team at Biffa, store staff at our trial locations, and Olio’s volunteers for getting our partnership off to such a flying start.”
