From left: Iseult Ward of FoodCloud and Andrew Shaw of Nestlé Ireland. Image: Marc O’Sullivan
Social enterprise FoodCloud will receive a €110,000 investment from Nestlé to support Irish families with access to nutritional food.
Nestlé Ireland has announced a €110,000 investment in Irish social enterprise FoodCloud to improve access to nutritional food to families that might otherwise go hungry over the coming months.
FoodCloud uses technology to connect a network of more than 700 charities and community partners to redistribute surplus food to families in need, differing from a physical food bank.
The investment was made on behalf of Nestlé’s 850 employees in Ireland at a time when FoodCloud has seen an exponential rise in the demand for its services. FoodCloud co-founder and CEO Iseult Ward said the company has “redistributed record volumes of food” since April.
“Whilst this represents a huge achievement for our own teams, it also demonstrates the reality of the growing demand for food in communities, which we are increasingly unable to meet with our current surplus supply.”
‘Urgent problem made worse’
Ward added that the company’s partners have indicated that the demand for its services is expected to grow further as the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic continue to be felt in Ireland.
“FoodCloud is very grateful for this generous support from Nestlé, which will enable us to work with our community partners to improve access to food that specifically meets the nutritional needs of the families and children they support during this critical time,” she said.
Nestlé Ireland’s country manager, Andrew Shaw, said access to food is an “urgent problem made worse” by the Covid-19 pandemic.
“FoodCloud has reported that 68pc of their charity partners believe that demand will increase as the Covid-19 payments are reduced. On behalf of our employees in Ireland, we will be helping low-income families access the balance of food they need over the coming weeks,” he added.
“The impact of Covid-19 will be far reaching but we must all take this chance to consider how we can do things differently for the future and contribute to a strong recovery.”
The partnership with FoodCloud is part of Nestlé UK and Ireland’s ambition to help 8,000 families who might otherwise go hungry during the school summer holidays. It is part of a broader investment that will also benefit Community Shop, a UK-based commercial redistributor of surplus food and household products.
