An interview with Tessa Clarke and Saasha Celestial-One, the founders of OLIO, one of Forward Fooding’s top 500 Food Tech startups.

Tessa Clarke and Saasha Celestial-One, the founders of OLIO

It’s time to put a face to the name…

We asked our FoodTech 500 top-runners to give us a bit of insight into how they started out as a company and their thoughts on the role of technology in Food innovation. Meet Tessa and Saasha, the power-duo behind OLIO, an app that connects neighbours with each other and with local businesses to exchange their edible surplus food instead of binning it. Let’s see what they had to say.

So tell us a little bit more about you! Where did the idea for your FoodTech company come from?

Tessa: The lightbulb moment for OLIO came when I was moving country and found myself on moving day with some good food that we hadn’t managed to eat, but that I couldn’t bring myself to throw away. Six sweet potatoes and a shrink-wrapped white cabbage to be precise! And so I set off on a bit of a wild goose chase to try and find someone to give it to, and I failed miserably. Through the whole process, it seemed crazy to me that I should have to throw this food away when there were surely plenty of people within hundreds of metres of me, who would love it. The problem was, they just didn’t know about it! And so the idea of OLIO, a mobile app where neighbours can share their surplus food, came about.

How is tech central to your business?

Tessa: OLIO is an app, and the whole premise is connecting neighbours to share food so we need to use GPS technology, the camera phone etc plus algorithms to ensure that the right people see the right listings.

Why do you think it’s important to see the food industry embrace tech?

Tessa: I don’t think the end customer cares about food tech. But they DO care about sustainable, delicious, resource-efficient, traceable food with minimal waste – and tech will be core to delivering this.

Want to know more? Check out OLIO’s full profile here.

Congratulations again to OLIO for ranking fifth in the category “Surplus & Waste Management” of the Foodtech 500 list.

To find out who else made it into the FoodTech 500; the top Food Tech companies in the world, click here.

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