Frida Dana collects food for her neighbours

WHEN she first started collecting food through the anti-food waste app OLIO at the beginning of the Covid lockdown, Frida Dana saw it as a way of getting out of the flat.

It was a way to keep fit as well, often walking miles all over London with her 10-year-old daughter to pick up free food – often given away from quality restaurants and shops – as well as useful household items.

But a lot has changed since those early days: Miss Dana is now one of OLIO’s biggest food sharers with a 5-star rating and a rainbow ranked status in part due to a weekly Sunday evening slot that sees her redistribute hundreds of items of unsold Tesco products to her neighbours around Leather Lane near Farringdon.

Explaining why she became an OLIO volunteer, she said: “Well, I feel like it gives me a sense of personal achievement, like doing good for people or the planet. These are the main things that drive me.”

She has lived in in the area for just under 20 years.

The 48-year-old goes to Tesco in Holborn early Sunday evening to collect the cage of food – but sometimes it’s more than that – before laying everything out on a trestle table outside her flat where collectors come and take what they need.

She said a great part of sharing a collection of food is the community it builds up, and now in her building she has lots of friends in the block.

Among the food distributed are salads, vegetables and fruit as well as pre-made meals and sandwiches.

She will also deliver to some neighbours who find it difficult to come to collect from her floor and praised the food sharing app – which alerts users where food is being given away at the end of the day – for giving her the opportunity to build a community.

“I think this is a good example about community, about sharing, about caring,” she said.

She also does up to six collections in the week from lawyers and banking firms in the City where croissants and sandwiches are left stacked up uneaten after meetings.