Olio is a mobile app for sharing by giving away, getting, borrowing or lending things in your community for free, aiming to reduce household[1][2] and food waste. It does this by connecting neighbours with spare food or household items to others nearby who wish to pick up those items. The food must be edible; it can be raw or cooked, sealed or open. Non-food items often listed on Olio include books, clothes[3] and furniture.[4]
 | |
| Company type | Private |
|---|---|
| Industry | Mobile app |
| Founders | Tessa Clarke, Saasha Celestial-One |
| Headquarters | , |
Areas served | Worldwide (currently in 49 countries) |
| Products | Food-sharing app |
Number of employees | 100 (2023) |
| Website | olioapp |
Those donating surplus food can be individuals or companies such as food retailers, restaurants, corporate canteens, food photographers etc., and donations can take place on an ad-hoc or recurrent basis. For example, some supermarket chains in the UK, including Tesco,[5] the Midcounties Co-operative,[6][7] Morrisons, Sainsbury's[8][9] and Iceland[10] have piloted Olio as an 'online food bank' to donate food and to reduce their waste. In March 2022, Olio partnered with Pandamart in Singapore.[11]
First launched in early 2015 by Tessa Clarke and Saasha Celestial-One,[12][13] by October 2017 the company had raised $2.2 million in funding.[14] Olio's Series A funding was led by Octopus Ventures, with investors such as Accel, Quadia and Quentin Griffiths contributing towards the $6 million that was raised.[15] The Olio app had around 7 million registered users as of May 2023.[16]