Irish wholesale foodservice supplier Musgrave MarketPlace has announced it has donated 115 tonnes of fresh food equating to over 250,000 meals with a value of €345,000 to charities across Ireland through its two-year partnership with FoodCloud.
FoodCloud is a social enterprise that connects businesses with surplus food to charities in their local communities via a software platform. Since Musgrave MarketPlace established its partnership with FoodCloud, charities like the Simon Community have been able to reduce weekly food costs by an average of 30%.
John Pakenham, business development manager for FoodCloud, said, "Musgrave MarketPlace has really embraced the challenge of tackling food waste and is a great example of a business using our solutions to reduce food surplus in the supply chain and at store level. Businesses with large volumes of surplus food like Musgrave Marketplace can learn from this partnership, as we work together to provide nutritious, delicious food to charitable and community groups.”
Musgrave MarketPlace established its partnership with FoodCloud in 2016, with the aim of providing local charities in need with fresh, wholesome and nutritional foods.
Speaking about the impact of the partnership, Jennifer Kitson of the fundraising department at Dublin Simon Community stated, “The Musgrave Marketplace partnership with FoodCloud has been contributing to Simon’s Riversdale House for over two months now. Riversdale House is a long-term accommodation service for people with high support needs following years of homelessness. As such, the donated food items are a valuable part of our ‘Food for Simon’ programme, which helps us to reduce the costs of running our services, leaving more money for other essential support services.”
© 2018 Hospitality Ireland – your source for the latest industry news. Article by Dave Simpson. Click subscribe to sign up for the Hospitality Ireland print edition.
