Yes. Every seller is verified before they can list, and each item shows its best-before or use-by date along with the full FSA-14 allergen list. Surplus food is perfectly good food — it is simply close to its date or over-ordered. Always check the packaging for the most up-to-date allergen information.

All orders are collected in person. When you buy, you get the shop's address, a collection window and any instructions the seller has added. We remind you six hours before your window opens and again two hours before, by email and in the app.

It depends on what the seller accepts: card payment through our hosted checkout, a payment link to the seller's own system, or cash when you collect. Card details never touch Sustaplates. The options available to you are shown before you confirm.

Because every order is collected in person, from a particular shop, within a particular window. A basket spanning three sellers would mean three separate collections at three different times, so we keep one seller per basket rather than creating an order that cannot be fulfilled.

Yes. Choose "Buy and donate to charity" on any listing and pick from the charities that need that kind of food nearby. The quantity is capped at whatever that charity still needs, so nothing is over-donated. The seller hands the food directly to them — you do not collect anything.

No. Sustaplates is collection-only. Keeping it that way is deliberate: it means no delivery emissions, and the food goes straight from the shop to whoever is going to eat it.

Sellers and charities upload identity, address and registration documents, then submit for review. Our team checks each submission by hand, usually within one business day, and you are told the outcome either way. Until that is approved, an account can prepare listings as drafts but cannot publish them or take orders.

Three things: an approved verification, a collection postcode with a catchment radius so we know where you can realistically collect from, and your requirements — what you need, how much, and how often. Charities are matched to nearby surplus by distance, so without a collection point and a radius you will not appear to donors.

Every new seller and charity gets a 15-day free trial with no card required. We remind you three days before it ends. If it lapses, your listings and all your data stay exactly as they are — only creating new listings and taking new orders pauses until you subscribe.

CO₂e avoided is estimated at 1.4 kg per item — the midpoint of the WRAP UK 2022 food-waste range — and meals rescued at roughly two per item. The same factor is applied to every item whatever it is, so treat these as an honest indication of scale rather than a reportable carbon figure. Your own impact report explains the maths behind every number.

Contact the seller as early as you can — collection windows are theirs to set and they can often be flexible. If you paid the seller directly and they have not yet confirmed your payment, you can cancel the request yourself and the listing frees up immediately. Unconfirmed reservations are released automatically after 72 hours.

Refunds are arranged directly with the seller, under section 6 of our terms. There is no self-service refund button — a marketplace of independent food businesses is better served by talking to the shop, and they can put it right or refund you as appropriate.