Episode 58 Elis Joudalova – OLIO

Catherine Weetman talks to Elis Joudalova about OLIO, the #1 sharing app. OLIO connects neighbours with each other and with local businesses so surplus food can be shared, not thrown away. This could be food nearing its sell-by date in local stores, spare home-grown vegetables, bread from your baker, or the groceries in your fridge when you go away. OLIO can also be used for non-food household items. Elis looks after Market Growth & Partnerships for OLIO, and has kickstarted, grown and managed strong food sharing communities in Jersey, Guernsey and Stockholm. Elis is a sustainability, food waste and circular economy change-maker with a contagious passion for food, environment, community empowerment and systems thinking. She loves inspiring and empowering people and businesses to make a change, focuses on the long term vision and has a unique entrepreneurial approach to solving problems. On top of that, Elis has been helping The Prague Innovation Institute in analysing CE initiatives, to support the City of Prague's strategy for a Circular Economy. We’ll hear how OLIO got started, using Lean Innovation principles and a great example of a Minimum Viable Product to test the concept. We find out how it works in practice, and what motivates people and businesses to use OLIO. And Elis explains how it’s evolved, how it’s managing to be COVID-secure, and shares her top tips for going circular. Podcast host Catherine Weetman is a circular economy business advisor, workshop facilitator, speaker and writer.  Her award-winning book: A Circular Economy Handbook: How to Build a More Resilient, Competitive and Sustainable Business includes lots of practical examples and tips on getting started.  Catherine founded Rethink Global in 2013, to help businesses use circular, sustainable approaches to build a better business (and a better world). Stay in touch for free insights and updates... Read on for a summary of the podcast and links to the people, organisations and other resources we mention. You can subscribe to the podcast series on iTunes, Google Podcasts, PlayerFM, Spotify, TuneIn, or search for "circular economy" in your favourite podcast app.  Stay in touch to get free insights and updates, direct to your inbox... Don’t forget, you can use our interactive, searchable podcast index to find episodes by sector, by region or by circular strategy. Plus, there is now a regular Circular Economy Podcast newsletter, so you get the latest episode show notes, links and transcript delivered to your inbox on Sunday morning, each fortnight. The newsletter includes a link to the episode page on our website, with an audio player. You can subscribe by clicking this link to update your preferences. Links we mention in the episode: * A Circular Economy Handbook: How to Build a More Resilient, Competitive and Sustainable Business - buy from any good bookseller,