The Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Michael Creed, has announced that up to €290,000 will be allocated to funds to food waste reduction and agri-food tourism projects.
This most recent initiative, under the Rural Innovation and Development Fund, is aimed at reducing food waste generated by food businesses, retailer/wholesalers, or suppliers in rural areas.
Successful Projects
€196,921 will be made available to the Clean Technology Centre, Cork Institute of Technology, for the expansion and development of the Savour Food, Food Waste Reduction Programme.
In addition to this, €46,550 will also be made available to the Carlow County Council, to focus on profile development, tourism experience development, co-operative branding and showcasing of Carlow’s Agri-Food Tourism industry.
Up to €46,130 will be provided to O’Connell Marketing, Sales and Communications to focus on new food trails and Food experiences/Farm visits, digital marketing and social media and the development and promotion of the events and activities through Taste Wexford which includes various stakeholders.
“The food waste project will further enhance the work previously funded to identify, target and address what is a rapidly growing issue not just here in Ireland but globally,” the Minister said.
“Ireland generates over 1 million tonnes of food waste each year. We must continue therefore to develop initiatives to help to address this issue”.
FoodWise 2025
He added that the Food Wise 2025 highlights the ‘natural synergy’ between agri-food and local tourism, and he believes that agri-food tourism is of great importance for rural areas in order to showcase their people, landscape, history and culture through agricultural produce, food and drink, and local cuisine.
“In addition,” Creed continued, “it provides opportunities for rural businesses, including farmers, producers and artisans, to develop their products and services, connect with the community and visitors to an area, and improve skills and best practice.”
“The Food Waste Reduction and Agri-Food Tourism projects are funded from my Departments Rural Innovation and Development Fund and so they will also serve to address that fund’s overall objective of energising the rural economy by encouraging innovative job creation and sustainable enterprise development”.
© 2018 Checkout – your source for the latest Irish retail news. Article by Aidan O’Sullivan. Click subscribe to sign up for the Checkout print edition.
