Tesco, One Stop and Pret a Manger are some of the leading UK retailers coming together to help Olio and FareShare redistribute 200m free meals by the end of the year.
The initiative, launched in response to the cost of living crisis, will see a number of major retail businesses supporting the tie-up between free food-sharing app Olio and charitable food redistribution network FareShare.
The ambitious partnership aims to save and redistribute 200 million meals over the next year as it looks to go some way towards tackling the UK’s enormous food waste problem as well as the escalating cost of living crisis.
Olio – which has a network of more than 50,000 volunteers – plans to make the next 12 months its most impactful ever, by redistributing 200 million meals with the support of FareShare and its extensive network of food retailers.
According to food waste charity WRAP, retail and hospitality industries send over a million tonnes of edible food to waste each year – the equivalent of 2.4 billion meals.
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“It’s simply wrong that right now millions of people across the UK are struggling to put food on the table, while billions of meals worth of perfectly edible food is going straight in the bin,” said Olio co-founder and CEO, Tessa Clarke.
“There’s more than enough food in this country to feed everybody and that’s why we decided to take action. We’re so grateful to those organisations that have already pledged their support and we’re calling for others to do the same as a matter of urgency.”
FareShare, which works with nearly 10,000 charities and charity groups across the UK, redistributed the equivalent of nearly 130 million meals in 2021/22 – four meals every second.
“Our latest annual figures show the scale of just how many people have been struggling to get enough to eat, while so much good food goes to waste” said FareShare CEO Lindsay Boswell.
“We’re excited to be working with OLIO on this great campaign to help reduce food waste and ensure it feeds people, not landfill.”
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