Trish Dromey profiles an enterprise whose success is measured not in profit, but how much it gives away.
AS an enterprise which measures its success not by profit, but by the amount it gives away, Dublin startup FoodCloud might well be compared to Santa.
Responsible for redistributing more than 10,000 tonnes of surplus food this year from supermarkets, growers, and food manufacturers to charities in the UK and Ireland, it does not, however, operate in secrecy in the North Pole.
A registered company with a Tallaght address, it has hubs and warehousing in Dublin, Cork, and Galway and instead of a team of elves has 50 employees, who include warehouse and admin staff as well as tech and product engineers.
For its impressive distribution system, the company relies not on magic or reindeer, but technology. It was set up in 2013 by two college students who came up with the idea of creating an app to redistribute surplus food from retail to the charity sector.
Although FoodCloud is a registered charity and a social enterprise, it is also a startup which has taken the same steps and encountered the same difficulties as any other startup —
taking risks, raising funding, and building a brand.
In 2017, FoodCloud was the first social enterprise to become a High Potential Startup client of Enterprise Ireland — usually only open to startups with the potential to scale internationally and achieve a turnover of €1m within three years.
It all began in 2012 when Iseult Ward and Aoibheann O’Brien decided to do something to solve the problem of food waste and tested out an idea by arranging for the surplus food from a local farmers’ market to be redistributed to a charity.
Setting up FoodCloud in 2013, they took part in the Trinity Launchpad accelerator programme, and that at the NDRC, receiving aid from the Guinness fund which was used to get the app developed.
At the end of the year, Tesco agreed to a trial. In 2014, FoodCloud scaled up, taking food from 146 Tesco stores, bringing Aldi on board, and securing grant aid from a variety of different
organisations.
Expanding into the UK in 2015, it trialled with Tesco, supplying the donated surplus to food charity Fare Share.
“In 2015 FoodCloud facilitated the donation of 567 tonnes of food to 325 charities,” said FoodCloud communications manager Vivienne Lawlor. The following year it joined forces with the Bia Food Initiative to open the first of three FoodCloud hubs, which accept surplus food from growers and food manufacturers and divide it into food parcels.
Last year, the company partnered with the Department of Social Protection in administering an EU food aid programme for deprived people.
In 2017, FoodCloud distributed 6,818 tonnes of food.
“This is the equivalent of over 15 million meals going to over 9,000 charities across the UK and Ireland,” said Ms Lawlor.
During the year, staff size grew to 27 and in the UK, Waitrose joined the list of donors.
A high point this year has been a deal with AIB, providing €1.5m over three years with matching part-funding from Social Innovation Fund Ireland.
“This is game-changing and will be used to invest in further development of technology, expanding Food CloudHubs and development of new services,” said Ms Lawlor, explaining that funding up to now has come in the form of grant aid and donations from a whole range of different organisations.
Also hugely significant for the company is a recent agreement with Nestle Ireland, which has become the first donor to pay FoodCloud for food collection. Ms Lawlor says this is a key step for the company in achieving its goal of becoming a financially sustainable organisation with an earned income business model.
FoodCloud hopes other industry players follow suit. It is at Christmas that the comparison with Santa Claus is most appropriate, as this is FoodCloud’s busiest time of the year.
“From around 4pm on Christmas Eve, retailers provide information about the food available and an army of volunteers will be waiting to collect it and deliver it to various charities,” said Ms Lawlor.
In the post-Christmas period, she says, the company will stand ready to receive vast quantities of turkeys, hams, and plum puddings, surplus to requirements for retailers.
From our friends over at the : Irishexaminer.com
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