At our London Gresham Street office, our onsite office cafeteria sets up shop every day, offering convenient and nutritious dining options for the team – including breakfast, snacks, and subsidized lunch options. It helps them save time, avoid a rainy or rushed lunch mission, and foster a sense of community through casual interactions, and plenty of free coffee of course.
However, with the benefits of readily available food comes the challenge of managing food waste. We’re tackling this issue head-on, to not only reduce waste but also extend a helping hand to our local community facing food poverty, creating a win-win situation for everyone involved.
Partnering with in-house caterers Blue Apple Catering and local sharing platform Olio, we’ve found a solution that means less food goes to landfill, and we make a meaningful contribution to address food poverty.
The key?
Olio has an innovative, collaborative surplus redistribution solution which means the uneaten food from our onsite café can be safely redistributed for human consumption.
When food is no longer needed for Avison Young staff, Olio volunteers step in to claim the collection and donate to those in need. Olio has a national network of 120,000 fully food-safety trained volunteers who can collect surplus wherever charities can’t and can share food in as little as 30 minutes once they’ve picked it up.
From May through to December 2023, we prevented almost 200kg (187kg to be exactly) of food from being wasted and donated 412 meals for 40 households.
It’s also inspired us and the Blue Apple team to minimize waste at every stage of the process - like reinventing dishes, utilizing leftovers, and looking for every opportunity to decrease waste.
It goes to show how engagement and collaboration with small, innovative service providers can lead to so many benefits!
We’ve tracked our impact from May – December 2023, and are so proud of what we’ve achieved together.
Edible food donated
Households fed
Meals saved
Items saved
CO, emissions avoided
Water saved
Car miles off the road
