We’ve got another ‘Food Waste Hero'!
10/27/2021
Here, Rachel Mitchinson, Intelligence Analyst, talks about how she redistributes food in her local area from supermarkets and wholesaler - Bookers reducing food waste via the Olio App, instead of it going to landfill. Rachel has saved over 6,000 portions of food since she started to use the app and has shared with more than 200 different people.
How does the Olio app work and how were you made aware of it?
The ‘Food Waste Heroes’ collect the food from the stores, take a photo of each food item, upload the pictures to the Olio app and then let people know that they can come to their house to pick it up.
On a busy collection night, the whole process can take a few hours. When it comes to distributing the food, it's down to the Food Waste Hero how they deal with it. Some heroes choose to do this on a first come, first serve basis. I try to divide it all up, as fairly as I can, making sure everybody that's asked for something gets something.
My husband and I started using the app because we hate food waste. My husband used to be a chef, so he tries not to waste anything. With the pandemic, a lot of people have lost their jobs, money is tight, so most of them are requesting for that reason. In general people are incredibly grateful and everybody is so polite.
We also try to spread the word about the Olio app because a lot of people don't know about it. Some of those people who do know about the app, feel like they can't ask if they are able to afford to buy food. I think people feel like we can afford it, so we shouldn't ask. We have to explain to people it's not about that, it was never set up for that reason. It was set up purely to reduce food waste, so it's open to anybody.
What work do you do for Olio and how do you organise it around your daily life?
Daily life is a bit crazy in our house because half of the time we've got three kids here and for the other half we've got five in total, so it is pretty crazy.
At the moment, I do four collections a week from Olio. One on a Thursday night, two on a Friday night and one during the day on Saturday. For three of the collections, I go to Tesco to pick up the food and for the one on Saturday I go to a Booker ‘Cash and Carry’ which is a story all in itself - the amount of food collected is crazy.
How long have you been using the app for?
I have been a Food Waste Hero for about a year. I've been on the app for longer. One night, I got a notification on my phone that said that a shop which is really close to me had availability for somebody to pick up. So, I just decided to have a go and then it kind of went from there.
How much time in the week do you spend collecting food from the stores?
Around six hours but sometimes it could be quite a lot more than that. It can be so varied. I find it incredibly rewarding. It's been very good. I've made some really nice friends. I've got quite a few regulars. I've had a look over my stats and I've saved over 6000 food items since I've been using the app. I've shared with over 200 different people.
What's the maximum number of items needed to pick up in one go?
It can vary massively. Sometimes, we can only get a couple of bags of salad but that’s not a bad thing because it means that the food store is getting their order right and they are not wasting anything.
I remember one day we had an incident where unfortunately a lady crashed her car into the shop closest to me. Thankfully, nobody got hurt. As a result of the crash, the fridges stopped working so they had to be clear out and we divided the food into three cars. I think I did about 300 items that night.
What sort of items do you pick up from Booker?
The last time I picked up from Booker, I literally filled the seven-seater car. I had stuff everywhere. We collect all sort of items such as cakes, crisps, drinks, salad…
One day I picked up a 15-kilo bag of carrots. I contacted an animal rescue place because it was just massive, and I wasn't 100% comfortable to give it to anyone because, although in date, I wasn’t able to be sure how good they were for human consumption.
Are there any other interesting stories around the app that you would like to tell us?
The lady crashing into the store but that is probably it. That was a very long night. I think my husband and I went to bed about 2am that morning. I don’t think I've got anymore funny stories, but I've had presents left on the doorstep. A lady even made me a Wonder Woman face mask. People like to say thank you.
What are you doing at home to be more sustainable?
We mainly compost (we have 1 compost bin in the garden and 2 in the allotment) and recycle. We try to use second-hand stuff where we can. On Facebook there are local pages where you can get rid of any items that other people might want. At the end of the day, one person’s trash is another person's treasure.
Also, we've got the allotment where we grow our own fruit and vegetables. We use Oddbox for a fortnightly fruit and veg delivery. It’s very good. They even deliver at night to reduce carbon emissions.
We have a zero-waste shop nearby that opened recently so we are trying to reduce our single use plastic by doing refills where possible.
