Frozen food retailer Iceland Foods has extended the trial of Olio’s food waste reduction initiative, Lucky Dip.
Lucky Dip offers customers access to food at discounted prices while helping to reduce waste.
As part of the scheme, Iceland Foods will offer at least eight reduced-to-clear items for £2 through the Olio app.
This represents a discount of around 75% off the usual price.
Olio app users can reserve Lucky Dip bags via the app before heading into the store to pay and collect the goods.
Lucky Dip has been extended to 14 stores and aims to reduce food waste by giving surplus or close to ‘use-by’ dates items a second chance, while making food more affordable for local communities.
A shopper was quoted saying, “I think this is a brilliant idea… I got home and had just under £20 worth of food that can last a few days,”, while another added “We picked up the Lucky Dip bag… it was fantastic value for money, and we’d do it again.”
Food Waste Prevention
Iceland store colleagues can manage Lucky Dip bag reservations within the same integrated system they use for existing Olio surplus food donations destined for the local community, the retailer noted.
This ensures that doesn’t go to waste and reaches local dinner tables.
The expanded trial follows a successful smaller-scale pilot that Iceland and Olio conducted across seven stores in October of last year.
The initiative has helped seven million meals from ending up in the bin. This is the equivalent of taking 45 million car miles off the road and saving 2.2 billion litres of water.
Stuart Lendrum, director of product, process and sustainability at Iceland Foods stated, “As a part of our ‘Doing It Right’ philosophy, we’re committed to reducing food waste while supporting our customers and communities.
“The expansion of our partnership with Olio through the Lucky Dip scheme is a great example of how we can combine innovation and sustainability to make a real difference, ensuring good food is never wasted.”
Saasha Celestial-One, COO and co-founder of Olio said, “Working with Iceland on Lucky Dip bags has been a wonderful addition to our already highly impactful partnership. We’ve loved developing another way for retailers to fight food waste through Olio, streamlining discounting and surplus redistribution into one simple system, and taking the operational burden off store colleagues. We’re looking forward to seeing where this new discounting chapter takes us next!”
Around 33,928 Olio volunteers have rescued surplus food from 1,013 stores, helping to share over 9.5 million food items with communities across the country.