Where's Olio?

sarah1972

Never anything near me other than gone off pastries or bread, deleted the app today along with too good to go.

shykins

@sarah1972 they shouldn’t be off, we cannot list anything with a previous day Use By and usually only list best before items for a day or so at most.  

elsien

sarah1972 said:

Never anything near me other than gone off pastries or bread, deleted the app today along with too good to go.

Have you looked at the "just gone" section. Where I am, all the fruit, veg etc vanishes within a couple of minutes. If I was just looking at the available section all I'd see is pastries and bread as well. However I now know the days and times that the regulars post so can keep more of any eye out. 

Aubergine_2

I collect and distribute on Olio and the listings really depend on the time of day.
Where I am we collect from the Tesco stores at 8.30pm each day. So if you have a browse at around 9pm you will find food that's just been posted. 
I just had a huge collection on Saturday as our store was closed on Easter Sunday. Hundreds of items of meat, fish, fruit and veg.
Easter and Xmas are good times to look because the stores always have excess food.
I have saved a fortune on my shopping bill.

Ms_Dee

Hi @Brie to answer your question of 'Where's Olio?' apparently it is active in 49 countries. 
You can find a list of all the UK places here: https://olioex.com/food-waste-in/united-kingdom/

I set my app to see 'nearest' first. This allows me to see the items nearest to my home/location.
You should be able to zoom into the map to see roughly which road the items are located for collection and it should say how many miles away (example: 0.7mi away)

Check the description and pick up times listed.
If you are giving away an item, the more detail the easier it is for someone to decide if they would like to request the items, so remember to include size, condition etc.

It is dependant on how many people in your area have signed up to the app and what they are giving away. 
If you don't have a food waste hero in your area and have some time and would like to make it worthwhile, I'm sure you can help others out in your area, by going to your local supermarkets and collecting the food items that couldn't be sold and sharing them on the app.

What can/can't and is available on the Olio app:
You can upload and give away food items, non-food items and sell handmade products in their made tab.
They have also recently introduced a borrow tab where you can lend and borrow items locally and a wanted tab if there is anything in particular you could do with. 

Anyone can share free items via the Olio app, but there are some things that cannot be shared on there, such as animals, knives etc. 
For more information: https://help.olioapp.com/article/100-what-can-cant-be-shared-on-olio

If you make/craft items then there are some that are allowed to be sold under the made tab.
For more information on food items that can/can't be sold on the made section: https://help.olioex.com/article/286-what-can-cant-i-share
For more information on craft items that can/can't be sold on the made section: https://help.olioex.com/article/287-what-can-cant-i-share

Use by and Best before dates:
Food must be collected before the 'Use by' date. 
Best before dates are only for when the item is 'best' consumed, but is usually still edible after the date, although Olio suggest you only list these to be collected up to 24 hours after the best before date.

Once you've collected an item, don't forget to rate the person giving away the item/s, this helps other users too!

If your local area doesn't have many users, maybe consider mentioning the app on local selling pages/groups or even tell the local webpage. The more we can help each other the better and we are helping the planet too.

UPDATE

13th May 2023
- The Made section was removed.
- Borrow/Lend and Request added.
- Sale option recently added and you can now also make offers on sale items.
- website has been removed, can only now use the app.
- website is now for information only, gone from https://olioex.com to https://olioapp.com

gele

Hi I just found this thread after downloading the Olio app. Ive not used it yet - just familiarising myself but dont see many recent posts on MSE. Are people still using Olio on here. I'm tempted to request something to try it out but quite like the idea of becoming a volunteer in the future.

elsien

I’m still using it. Still don’t have the time or the energy to be a volunteer, round here same day items seem to be picked up late so you need to stay up till 11 or 12 pm for people to collect and I can’t be doing with that.
Getting less from it food wise because there’s more people asking now and because my volunteer that I could walk to has moved away.
Finding the non-food items section handy both to pick things up and to donate stuff that I think the charity shop might not want but is too good to go into landfill. Probably using it more than freegle now because freegle seems to have gone downhill and has a lot less on there. 

heatherw_01

I still use it but never anything within 20 miles of me so never actually had anything lol.
Had the app for a few years now but never had anything remotely local.

It is usually food from other people, sometimes stores but mainly just people giving it away so depends on how many users in your area.

Adamhoward20

We find that people on Olio are more reliable than those on Facebook marketplace. We’ve only really ever given stuff away for free, but it’s usually snapped up and they people actually come to collect it.