A number of food waste-reduction projects have received funding through the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (DAFM), under the Rural Innovation and Development Fund.
Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Charlie McConologue, has announced that €180,000 will be allocated to help reduce the waste that is generated by businesses, retailers and wholesalers, or suppliers in rural areas.
Food-waste projects
Four projects have been awarded funding:
- Clean Technology Centre, Cork Institute of Technology (CTC-CIT) has been granted €59,900 to provide an online training programme for the industry for national roll out to tackle waste in businesses;
- Food Cloud has been granted €59,400 for its project that seeks to investigate the potential for increasing surplus food redistribution from the Irish horticulture sector;
- €28,700 has been awarded to Foodie Save to further develop and expand a mobile application (app) which allows businesses in the commercial sector to sell their unsold surplus products at the end of their business day;
- Carlow County Council is to receive €32,000 to help in the delivery of a new programme ‘Optimization+’ which brings together supports for SMEs in the food, drink and hospitality sectors to develop an effective circular economy model for their treatment of food.
Minister McConologue said these projects contribute to Ireland’s commitment to reduce the amount of food we waste in accordance with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), including SDG 12.3 which calls on all nations to halve such waste and reduce food loss by 2030.
“These initiatives will further enhance the work previously funded to identify, target and address what is a rapidly growing issue not just here in Ireland but globally. Ireland generates over one million tonnes of food waste each year.
“It is now more important than ever to continue to develop initiatives to help to address this issue,” said the minister.