Aldi Ireland yesterday announced that they will be donating 500,000 meals with a savings of €700,000 to charities through FoodCloud. A total of 79 stores are now particpating in the programme.
The Supermarket chain announced it’s new national partnership with FoodCloud early this year whereby surplus food from Aldi stores across the country would be redistributed to charities and community groups.
According to Finbar McCarthy, Aldi’s Group Buying Director said, “We are delighted to reach this milestone of donating 500,000 meals to charity through FoodCloud, helping charities to make a €700,000 saving in the process. Even across an efficient retail operation such as Aldi, there will unavoidably be some unsold, surplus food each day. By partnering with FoodCloud such surplus food goes to a good cause. Combating food poverty and waste in the areas our stores serve is a central pillar of our community programme and we would encourage any charity or community group that can benefit from FoodCloud’s services to register at www.food.cloud/.”
Essentially, FoodCloud is a social enterprise set up to ensure that no good food goes to waste. By using the FoodCloud platform, Aldi staff in a store can, in seconds, upload a description of the products available. The charity which is linked up to the store through the receives a text saying the food is available for collection which they collect and redistributes it to those in need.
FoodCloud co-founder Aoibheann O’Brien added, “Our national partnership with Aldi has increased the scale and the number of charities we can help each day, making a real difference to local communities across Ireland. We are hugely grateful to Aldi for its continued support of FoodCloud and for its incredible donation of 500,000 meals.”
The charities and community groups across Ireland have benefited from this initiative including the Doorway Project in Letterkenny, Irish Wheelchair Association Sligo, Cashel Social Services and Drogheda Homeless Aid.
© 2016 - Checkout Magazine by Donna Ahern
