Minister Cowen announces Funding for Food Waste Reduction Projects

The Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Barry Cowen TD, has announced the projects that will receive funding this year from his department, under the Rural Innovation and Development Fund, for initiatives aimed at reducing food waste generated by food businesses, retailer/wholesalers, or suppliers in rural areas.

Minister Cowen, while making the announcement of the successful projects with associated funding of almost €300,000, said:

"I am delighted that we can continue to support rural areas and the environment under this initiative. The food waste project will further enhance the work previously undertaken to identify, target and address what is a rapidly growing issue not just here in Ireland but globally. Ireland generates over 1 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.

"The Food Waste Reduction projects also serve to address the fund’s overall objective of energising the rural economy by encouraging innovative job creation and sustainable enterprise development."

ENDS

Notes to the Editor:

Funding has been made available to the following successful projects:

Clean Technology Centre, Cork Institute of Technology (CTC-CIT) – Continued development and national roll out of the Savour Food programme which offers bespoke support to implement solutions tackling food waste that suit individual needs of engaged businesses (€98,550)
Food Cloud – this project involves the development of technology to alert volunteers when and where surplus food is available and what local charities can accept. It also includes training and recruitment of volunteers “food rescue heroes” (€100,000)
Foodie Save – this is the development of a mobile application (app) which allows businesses in the commercial food sector to sell their unsold surplus food at the end of their business day thereby reducing food waste (€100,000)