Opel Ireland serve up 44,970 meals for charity 

As hundreds of local charities brace themselves for a busy season ahead, award winning social enterprise FoodCloud today revealed plans to deliver the equivalent of 44,970 meals of surplus food to those charities most in need. In December alone, a seven strong fleet of Opel FoodCloud vans will be responsible for the safe redistribution of approximately 20 tonnes of this otherwise wasted food across Ireland, with those recipient charities providing essential support within their communities.

Having pledged their commitment to FoodCloud earlier this year, Opel Ireland’s two Combo and five Movano vans have successfully converted miles to meals, recording over 1,371 deliveries throughout the country to date, carrying a total of 129.5 tonnes of food or the equivalent of 285,078 meals for people in need.

FoodCloud Co-Founder Aoibheann O’Brien said; “Opel have been a fantastic partner for FoodCloud and have enabled us to grow and scale our solution. Some charities have a huge need for food donations but are running very tight operations and don’t have the resources required to pick these up. Opel have provided the vital equipment needed to rescue large volumes of surplus food from the food industry and deliver it to hard working charities in local communities around the country. Our partner charities – from breakfast clubs, to homeless hostels to family support services – are places that provide life-changing support. Accessing this food allows them to provide a more diverse range of food and they can redirect cost savings towards their essential core services.”

Reflecting on the success of the partnership and looking ahead to the festive season, Gillian Whittall, Head of Marketing and PR for Opel Ireland said; “We are so encouraged by what has been achieved so far, but perhaps more so by what the vans are set to facilitate in the run up to Christmas. While many of us can look forward to a season of festivities, this is just not the reality for so many others.

“By giving local charities access to this good produce, FoodCloud have created a solution for the most vulnerable in our society, and Opel is proud to be fueling this food movement to support them. This up-weighted delivery network allows charities to consolidate their limited funds to other much needed areas. Most importantly it gives people who need it most the chance to eat good healthy food that would simply have been wasted previously.”

The Finglas Youth Resource Centre is one of 133 charities benefitting from these deliveries, with Karen Judd from the youth centre saying: “We are a purpose built youth service who engage with young people in Finglas between the ages of 10-24 years of age. We engage with over three hundred young people on a weekly basis. Alongside our programmes we offer food to all our service users, which promotes social interaction among the young people. We also run cookery programmes to build on social and personal skills. Having surplus food delivered through FoodCloud has been a huge support to us throughout the year in helping us to provide this service”

Refrigerated by TSS Ltd, to ensure the food gets preserved for as long as possible, the Opel vans are controlled by the dedicated network of FoodCloud staff and volunteers. A social enterprise that connects businesses with surplus food to charities in their local communities that need it, FoodCloud recently launched FoodCloud Hubs, providing an end-to-end solution for surplus food in Ireland. Along with The Finglas Youth Resource Centre, some of the other organisations FoodCloud already works with include The Society of St. Vincent de Paul, Peter McVerry Trust and The Simon Community.

For more information about the FoodCloud check out http://food.cloud or to find out more about the Opel Combo and Opel Movano vans click here

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