INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Olio, the hyperlocal food sharing app that wants to help tackle the world food waste epidemic, has picked up $6 million in Series A
startup offers a location-based app and website that lets you list and post a photo of unwanted food items to be shared with other people in
That is, food that you might otherwise throw away.The company, Olio co-founder and CEO Tessa Clarke told me in a call earlier this week, was
born out of the idea that a bottom-up, community approach — driven by individual behaviour — is the most scalable way to cut down on the
amount of food households typically waste
She says about a third of food production is thrown away and/or allowed to perish, which mostly ends up in landfill, and that food in the
home represents about half of this.The startup helps businesses tackle the problem, too
Dubbed the &Food Waste Heroes Programme,& Olio is enabling companies, such as retailers or those operating events and corporate canteens, to
utilise the Olio platform and community to become &zero food waste& organisations.This sees companies charged a fee and in return Olio will
dispatch its thousands of volunteers, who have been vetted and are trained in food hygiene, to come to their stores or outlets and collect
The volunteers then photograph and list the items on the app and offer themselves up as hyperlocal collection points
Most items are made available for sharing and picked up/distributed in just a few hours.Clarke says the startup is also exploring the
possibility of moving to a premium model, where the most active users of the platform pay for a subscription that gives them access to
additional value-add features
The Holy Grail of hyperlocal advertising is an untapped opportunity, too, given that the app already boasts over half a million users.What
is most striking when hearing the Olio co-founder talk about the young company is how mission-driven she, her team and the app community are
That because not only is food waste an expensive problem — over $1 trillion per year, apparently — but the environmental dent food
production and distribution makes is huge, while a growing population means that food shortages will realistically become an issue in the
Factor in that Olio can and, to a certain extent, already is helping to alleviate food poverty, and it easy to understand why.I also
questioned Clarke on Olio reliance on volunteers and she said that the company currently receives far more volunteer applications than it
More broadly, since the time spent being active on the platform is unlikely to translate into a full-time job, since it only works by being
very distributed and remaining steadfastly hyperlocal
Volunteers also get to keep up to 10 percent of the food they collect.Meanwhile, Olio Series A round was led by Octopus Ventures, with
existing investors including Accel, Quadia, and Quentin Griffiths (co-founder of ASOS Achica) following on
Other new investors joining Octopus include Lord Waheed Alli Silvergate Investments 2, Bran Investments, Julien Codorniou (Facebook) and
Jason Stockwood (Match.com, Simply Business).
