Glanbia Ireland’s contribution to the FoodCloud surplus food social enterprise has surpassed an estimated €700,000 for the first time, the company has said.
The contribution has seen 25.5t of surplus food from the company shared out among needy families nation-wide between January and the end of March of this year alone.
FoodCloud Hubs work with food businesses across Ireland who have volumes of surplus food. They redistribute this to charities.
A Glanbia Ireland spokesperson said: “it’s a win-win for businesses such as ours as well as we can contribute to our community in a meaningful and practical way by ensuring that no good food goes to waste.
Between January and March of this year, Glanbia Ireland contributed 25.5t of food to FoodCloud. This equates to approximately 60,714 meals and has help cut about 81.6t of carbon. The approximate value of this surplus food from Glanbia was €76,500.
Over the years, Glanbia has donated 233.6t of food under the initiative, equating to 556,190 meals, 747.5t of avoided CO2 and some €700,800 worth of food, the firm says.
Glanbia first piloted a partnership with FoodCloud in 2018.
Fresh, quality produce from Glanbia Ireland which would otherwise be destined for disposal as surplus, is redistributed to charities across Ireland by FoodCloud, “creating a win-win situation by helping charities to save money and helping businesses such as ours reduce our carbon impact”, the spokesperson added.
Commenting on Glanbia Ireland’s contribution to date, site manager in Portlaoise, Alan Murphy, said the company is delighted to play its part.
“As much as 30% of food globally is wasted every year and this accounts for 8% of greenhouse gas emissions.
“Charitable organisations have been under even greater pressure since the pandemic and Glanbia is only too happy to contribute, ensuring that surplus, quality food is not wasted and goes to genuine hardship cases,” Murphy concluded.