Business
Do you want to learn how to grow a brand based around community? How to scale-up a start-up? How picking a Co-Founder has similar qualities to a marriage? Then Join us for Episode 3 of our Sustainable Tech Series, in which we are joined by the co-founder of OLIO, Tessa Clarke. OLIO is a hybrid of a marketplace and a community app, that alerts neighbours of unwanted food in their area, connecting like-minded individuals wanting to fight food waste, and in turn the climate crisis. 1/3 of all the food we produce each year gets thrown away and if food waste was a country it would be the 3rd largest source of greenhouse gas emissions, behind USA and China. Tessa shares how these shocking statistics paired with her respect for the hard work put in to growing food, learnt from a rural upbringing, pushed her to pursue this mission and never go back to her corporate career. OLIO has grown from a whatsapp group and some leftover sweet potatoes, to a 2 million strong community. So far, 9 million portions of food have been saved, which is the equivalent to 20 million car miles off the road and saving over 1 billion litres of water! Tessa shares the challenges they overcame whilst adapting the app to suit their users and how over the next year, they’ll be preparing to go to market for Series B funding.