Olio – A game changer for food waste that connects people

OLIO’s mission is to eliminate the food waste in people’s homes across the world. OLIO’s food sharing platform empowers users to share unwanted or surplus food, helping to develop the sharing economy mind-set, and building local communities. Since it was founded in 2015, OLIO has signed up more than 6,3 million users across 62 countries

Between 33-50% of all food produced globally is never eaten, while 800 million people go to bed hungry every night. It takes a land mass larger than China to grow the food each year that is ultimately never eaten with dramatic negative impact– land that is deforested, species that are driven to extinction, soil that is degraded – all to produce food that we just throw away. Moreover, food that is never eaten accounts for 25% of all fresh water consumption globally. And when food waste goes to landfill it decomposes without access to oxygen and creates methane, which is a 23x more polluting greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. Every which way you look at it, food waste is a major culprit in destroying our planet.

Small actions, every day, can lead to big change

OLIO believes that small actions, every day, can lead to big change. Collectively – one rescued cupcake, carrot or bottle of lotion at a time – we can build a more sustainable future where our most precious resources are shared, not thrown away. The ambition of OLIO is that by 2030 we can halve the food waste in people’s homes and the local community.

Scaling Internationally

OLIO hits two impact themes of Rubio as it targets to make the food supply chain more circular whilst increasing social cohesion in neighbourhoods. In OLIO, Rubio has found incredibly mission-driven female entrepreneurs, a passionate team and impactful co-investors. It is impressive how OLIO has been able to attract both impact driven co-investing funds (Mustard Seed, Norrsken, Quadia) as well as commercially oriented VC’s (Octopus Ventures, Accel) across different countries in Europe.

Rubio Impact Ventures bring deep impact expertise plus a powerful European footprint, both of which will be critical on our journey to 1 billion OLIO-ers within the next 10 years. We’ve really enjoyed working with the team, and it’s a great pleasure to partner together on this incredible journey.

Tessa Clarke, CEO and founder of OLIO

Try OLIO and download the app or find mare info on: https://olioex.com/. For more information, please go to Olio


Impact Theme

  • People Power

  • Circular Solutions

SDG Alignment

  • #11 Sustainable cities and communities

  • #12 Responsible consumption and production

  • #13 Climate action

Follow the impact > Olio

Follow the impact > Olio, the proof that small actions can lead to big change.

Rubio’s ‘Follow the Impact’ interview series, delves into the passions, motivations, and vision of the exceptional founders we have the privilege of partnering with.

In this interview, Tessa Clarke, co-founder and CEO of Olio shares their story. From the light bulb moment when Olio was born to all the plans for the future.