Biffa to help clients cut with out end-of-day food surplus on site through Olio collaboration 

New partnership offers innovative food redistribution service to Biffa clients – with Caffè Nero, Nando’s and Nisa already seeing positive results

• Leading sustainable waste management company Biffa has partnered with food redistribution organisation Olio to further encourage businesses across the UK to move surplus food up the waste hierarchy

• The collaboration will see businesses able to prevent same-day surplus food from becoming waste as part of Biffa and Olio’s aligned mission to prevent food waste and enable the UK’s circular economy

• Through Olio’s platform, Biffa customers have been able to track the meals, water and emissions savings as a result of redistribution

• Olio’s Food Waste Heroes will see the on-site surplus get to the hands of those locally who need it, while businesses will benefit from consolidated surplus food and sustainable waste management services

Biffa has announced its partnership with Olio in the UK, an innovative food sharing app, to add same-day local food redistribution to its existing toolkit of surplus redistribution and sustainable waste management solutions.

Every year in the UK, billions of potential meals end up in the bin, while 11.3 million people struggle to feed themselves. Biffa’s new collaboration with Olio offers retail and hospitality businesses a unique opportunity to transform their on site surplus food into meaningful support for local communities.

Through this partnership, Biffa rounds out its wider surplus redistribution offering alongside commercial redistributor Company Shop Group, which was acquired by Biffa in 2021. An initial trial across 25 sites at Nando’s, Caffè Nero and Nisa has already delivered an impressive impact.

Same-day, local food redistribution now available as part of Biffa’s client offering 

Thanks to the partnership, any edible surplus food remaining at the end of the day can be shared with the community when stores, sites or restaurants close.

The process for those businesses is simple – colleagues simply set aside food that didn’t sell or get eaten at the end of the working day for Olio volunteers (called Food Waste Heroes) to collect. Volunteers then take that food home, and upload it to Olio’s app, so people nearby can request and collect it. Usually, food finds a new home in as little as 30 minutes.

The new service rounds out Biffa’s end-to-end food management model, with solutions for same-day redistribution by Olio complemented by Company Shop Group and regular scheduled waste and recycling collections by Biffa.

Biffa customers can now access Olio’s network of volunteers through one single partnership – the latest step made by the company in its mission to enable the circular economy in the UK, and to prevent surplus food from becoming waste.

Businesses can also track the impact that their Olio food donations are having on the local community via Olio’s Partner Hub – including how many meals they’ve rescued, how much water they’ve saved, and the emissions avoided through the food they’ve redistributed.

“We’re constantly looking for innovative ways to prevent surplus food from becoming waste in the first place in our mission to enable the UK’s circular economy by reducing waste,” said Amy Hooper, Innovation Manager, Biffa.

Amy Hooper, Innovation Manager, Biffa

“It’s been an absolute pleasure working with Olio, and we are so excited to be launching this partnership. By joining forces, our unique collaboration enables us to move more food up the waste hierarchy than ever before, helping our customers hit their sustainability goals while saving them money by reducing food waste. 

“What sets this initiative apart is that businesses can tackle same-day food surplus, track the positive impact of their contribution, and access end-to-end food surplus and waste management solutions all in one place. Along with Company Shop Group as part of the wider Biffa group, customers will have access to a great range of options to manage their food waste and surplus sustainably with tangible social impact tracking.”

Saasha Celestial-One, co-founder and COO of Olio, added:

“We’re so proud to announce our new partnership with Biffa, which is the first of its kind in the commercial waste management sector. Together, we’re able to reduce the weight of good, edible food ending up in Biffa bins, and make sure it feeds local families instead. 

“Olio and Biffa are 100% aligned on our mission to build a future without waste, and we’ve been really encouraged to see the results from our trials across Caffè Nero, Nando’s and Nisa locations over the past 12 months. We’re incredibly grateful to the whole team at Biffa, store staff at our trial locations, and Olio’s volunteers for getting our partnership off to such a flying start.”

Saasha Celestial-One, co-founder and COO, Olio

Success stories: The partnership in action

The Biffa-Olio partnership has already seen successful trials with major brands like Caffè Nero, Nando’s and Nisa, with all three businesses reporting positive results.

When asked how they found the trial, one store manager at Nisa said:

“We are loving Olio. The volunteers are brilliant, the food is going out to the local community and it’s making me so proud to be able to help others. I definitely want to continue once the pilot is over.”

Tim Norton, Trials Manager at Nisa, said: “Cutting food waste is a big priority issue to overcome for independent retailers so it is pleasing to see that the initial trial period with Biffa and Olio has been a success. We look forward to working with them heading into 2025 to bring continued benefits for our independent retailers.”

Collectively, a trial running across 25 sites in 2023 and 2024 saw 54kg of food rescued, equating to 7,197 meals for local people, saving 2,258 litres of water and preventing 3,739kg in carbon emissions.

Olio’s volunteers all undertake thorough food safety training as part of their onboarding in the app, meaning Biffa clients can confidently donate any food type – including cooked, chilled and frozen food – as well as ambient grocery products.

Biffa’s drive for social impact at scale

Working with Olio to share surplus food same-day is the latest move by Biffa to tie meaningful social impact into its business model and mission to bolster the UK’s circular economy.

In 2021, Biffa acquired Company Shop Group, the UK’s leading surplus redistributor, which supports over 800 UK businesses redistribute surplus products and transforms imperfect products with incorrectly labelled or damaged packaging into perfectly saleable products, before selling them through its network of Company Shop ‘surplus supermarkets’.

The Group also redistributes surplus through its award-winning social enterprise, Community Shop, a not-for-profit tackling the root causes of food insecurity in some of the most deprived areas of the UK. With 13 stores nationwide, it provides access for thousands of families to deeply discounted food and essentials, as well as life changing development programmes.