Saasha is co-founder of OLIO: a free app harnessing the power of mobile technology and the sharing economy to provide a solution to the problem of food waste. OLIO connects neighbours with each other and volunteers with local businesses, so that surplus food can be shared, not thrown away. OLIO has 800,000+ users who have successfully shared 1.2+ million portions of food with each other. Prior to OLIO, Saasha spent 13 years at Morgan Stanley, McKinsey & American Express. Saasha has an MBA from Stanford, is mum to a six year old boy and the proud daughter of hippy entrepreneurs.
Follow Saasha on Twitter @saashaN8.
Highlights
It is very simple. Anyone who has leftover food uploads a picture and alerts nearby people, who can then request and later collect the food to eat.
I had a non-traditional childhood. I was born at home, I was never vaccinated & they made up my surname. Stereotypical hippies you might think, but my parents started a business selling wholesale herbs & spices.
I have vivid memories of following my Mum around town & collecting things that other people had thrown away.
My brothers and I would go around the local lakes &parks, collect hundreds of cans every day, take them to the grocery store and turn them in for cash.
I used to grow grapes in our back yard and make juice or grape lemonade and sell those to the neighbours.
My childhood was chaotic and financially insecure. I was seeking to build a very secure and stable career. I studied Economics and later went to work in banking and consulting.
I had the hustle from a very young age and I never really lost it.
It’s a fact that so many people are going hungry whilst we are wasting so much – it feels wrong and immoral.
If food waste were a country it would be the third largest contributor to climate change, after the USA & China.