Olio is a mobile app for sharing by giving away, getting, borrowing or lending things in your community for free, aiming to reduce household^[1][2] and food waste. It does this by connecting neighbours with spare food or household items to others nearby who wish to pick up those items. The food must be edible; it can be raw or cooked, sealed or open. Non-food items often listed on Olio include books, clothes^[3] and furniture.^[4]

Those donating surplus food can be individuals or companies such as food retailers, restaurants, corporate canteens, food photographers etc., and donations can take place on an ad-hoc or recurrent basis. For example, some supermarket chains in the UK, including Tesco,^[5] the Midcounties Co-operative,^[6][7] Morrisons, Sainsbury's^[8][9] and Iceland^[10] have piloted Olio as an 'online food bank' to donate food and to reduce their waste. In March 2022, Olio partnered with Pandamart in Singapore.^[11]

First launched in early 2015 by Tessa Clarke and Saasha Celestial-One,^[12][13] by October 2017 the company had raised $2.2 million in funding.^[14] Olio's Series A funding was led by Octopus Ventures, with investors such as Accel, Quadia and Quentin Griffiths contributing towards the $6 million that was raised.^[15] The Olio app had around 7 million registered users as of May 2023.^[16]

• Food loss and waste
• Sharing economy