Getting noticed

Meet your neighbours and save the planet with OLIO, The Food Sharing Revolution

Remember when you were a child and told to clear your plate - there are starving people in Africa, after all. Remember getting older (and less obedient) and thinking this didn’t make much sense? It’s not as if you could ship the food on your dinner plate to someone halfway around the world…right?

As a consequence, most of us in the developed world grew up recognizing that wasting food when so many people go hungry everyday is wrong on a moral level, but not actually feeling there was something we could do about it directly.

As much as I hate food waste - throwing away unused food physically pains me - it took me a long time to understand the complexity of the international food system, and to realize that what we waste here at home does have a direct impact on people on the far side of the planet.

To put things in perspective, the land required to grow all the food that is ultimately wasted globally is the size of Mexico. This land and all the physical labour, water and energy required to grow this food could have been used for more productive purposes. It’s not just the food that is wasted - it’s the shipping, distribution and marketing resources that were deployed to bring that food from farm to fork. The opportunity cost is huge. The direct cost is also enormous.

All around the world natural habitats are being destroyed to produce food that is never eaten. Land that could be used to grow food to feed local populations is being used to produce food that is shipped overseas and never eaten. The developed world’s insatiable appetite drives up the price of food, making affordable food inaccessible for the world’s 795 million malnourished.

Here in the UK 50% of all food waste happens in the home - the equivalent of £12.5 billion per year. At the individual level, we waste 20% of all food we purchase - it’s like going to Tesco, buying five bags of food, and leaving one in the car park. Put that way, it sounds crazy.

It wasn’t very long ago that this level of foodwaste would have been unheard of. People knew where their food came from, and how to cook with every part of every ingredient. Food was precious, so nothing went to waste - leftovers were repurposed, and in the rare event there was too much food, surplus was shared with neighbours.

Over the last few decades, in the developed world food has become significantly cheaper, and most people have started to value it less, taking its endless bounty for granted.

This is where OLIO comes into play. OLIO is a free app connecting neighbours with each other and with local businesses so that food can be shared, rather than thrown away. Imagine: rather than making a bee-line for the supermarket at the end of theday to pick up supplies for dinner, you take a look on OLIO to see what free/steeply discounted food you can pick up on your way home instead. Not only are you saving money, but you are also saving food that would have gone to waste. Your local bakery really would have thrown out that focaccia at the end of the day. Your local shop really would have thrown out the cheese with a ‘best before’ date for today. Why not rescue them and make pizza?

Back to the big picture: whatever food is sourced via OLIO is less food to be purchased in the first place. This reduces pressure on the international food system as a whole. The planet will need to feed 2 billion more people by the year 2050.

This can be achieved with our current agriculture capacity - but only if we can collectively reduce our food waste sufficiently. OLIO is one small step in the right direction.

OLIO co-founder Saasha Celestial-One, writing for Cibare magazine, 23 July 2015