- 4 Days
- 2500 Delegates
- 338 meals saved
- 612kg of CO2 emissions avoided
- 100,000 litres of water saved
Event Exchange partner with Tobacco Dock and OLIO to cut food waste
London, UK – 30th October 2019 Tobacco Dock, one of London’s most imaginative and versatile venues, today announced that they have joined forces with Event Exchange, OLIO and Alteryx, revolutionising business through data science and analytics, to eliminate food waste at the Alteryx Inspire Europe 2019 event.
The events industry often gets a bad reputation for its performance on food waste. No matter how carefully you plan or how hungry the attendees are, there’s often food remaining at the end of an event. With strict health and safety rules, heart-plummeting quantities of delicious food are consigned to the bin. It can be disheartening and frustrating. Following the recent Extinction Rebellion protests, there has never been a time where sustainability has had more relevance.
Sustainability has long been a core focus for Alteryx, Event Exchange and Tobacco Dock. When the Event Exchange team, introduced the idea of using OLIO to the teams, they jumped at the chance. OLIO is a revolutionary app making the sharing of surplus food safe and straightforward, whether through connecting neighbours who have bought too much food or on a commercial scale.
Working alongside Event Exchange, Alteryx and the Tobacco Dock Food team, OLIO managed to save 338 meals over the course of Inspire Europe. This benefitted hundreds of local residents. As a result of the food being eaten, not thrown away, the environmental impact represented the equivalent of 612kg of CO2 emissions avoided and over 100,000 litres of water saved.
“This is something we’ve been working towards for a long time,” said Alex Martindale, Director of Tobacco Dock Food. “I’ve been very pleased with the strides we’ve made in minimising our food waste, but inevitably there are always leftovers. It’s wonderful that we can do something useful with this food and in such an easy way. We will certainly embrace this approach for future events.”
The OLIO team are similarly enthused. “With the climate crisis and sustainability now firmly in the mainstream, delegates are increasingly concerned about the enormous problem of food waste at events, that to date has been unavoidable,” says Tessa Clarke, Co-Founder and CEO of OLIO. “We’re delighted to have partnered with Alteryx and Tobacco Dock to enable them to have the first of what we hope will be many zero food waste events. They’ve been wonderful partners and true pioneers in the sector”
“We were thrilled to play a part in the effort to eliminate food waste and to give back to the London community during our Inspire Europe conference,” said Tori Adamo, senior manager of Alteryx For Good and university relations at Alteryx. “Alteryx for Good is proud to partner with passionate organizations like Tobacco Dock and Olio, to drive incremental, positive change around the world.”