A GENEROUS resident who uses a food sharing app to share unused supermarket produce is calling on the community to recruit more volunteers.

Tina Schafroth, of Lawford, is the squad leader for the volunteer team collecting food from Tesco in Harwich and uses the Olio app to distribute it.

The team currently collects food that Tesco isn’t selling and lists it for anyone to request on Olio with a focus on reducing waste and being cost effective.

Tina spoke about her journey to becoming an Olio volunteer.

She said: “I’m from Lawford but I’ve shopped in Harwich since I’ve moved here. It’s ideal because I can go into Harwich and do all my shopping as its less busy than Colchester for example.

“We have four volunteers including myself and collect food that isn’t sold at the end of the evening.

“While listings are really busy in other areas, we’re finding that food is often being left unrequested in the Harwich area so I can only guess that people haven’t heard of it.

Olio works with several shops and the collection process is different for each.

For Tesco, Tina and her team collect in the evening, bring the food home and list the items individually with details like best before dates.

Recipients can then use the Olio app to request an item and often there can be several requests for a particular item if the demand is high.

Then the item is safely collected for the consumer to enjoy.

Tina would like to make Harwich residents more aware of the app as it is popular in surrounding areas.

She added: “Sometimes I collect from Harwich and when the listings aren’t getting any traction, I list the items in Lawford.

“On Wednesday night I listed more than 80 items and barring a few loaves of bread its all been requested but in Harwich we could go some evenings where nothing is requested.”

Tina’s team is looking for a new volunteer who is able to commit to the same evening most weeks through the year collecting at around 8.30pm and listing on the app as soon as possible.

Interested parties are encouraged to join the app and start the training modules to become a volunteer.