Voice of Irish Concern for the Environment Ltd.,
9 Upper Mount Street, Dublin 2.
Phone: 01-6425741
Twitter: @voice_ireland
e-mail: [email protected]
Web: www.voiceireland.org
Patrons: Darina Allen, Pauline Bewick, Don Conroy, Dick Warner,
Christy Moore, John Feehan, Brendan Kennelly, Sr. Mary Minehan.
FOOD RESCUE
A Community-driven Food Waste Public Awareness Event
Background:
Food waste has become a global problem in which food is lost throughout the food cycle. In
Europe, there are 89 million tonnes of food waste and in Ireland, we produce one million tonnes,
throwing away around 1/3 of all food purchased. The EU Parliament has recognised this issue
will have grave consequences if not addressed quickly and declared 2014 as the Year Against
Food Waste.
There is no quick fix to this issue but it’s up to
the local communities and champions to lead the
way in helping to change the household mind-set
in relation to food, adopting new waste reduction
methods and involving the local community in a
common challenge to reduce food waste.
We held a public awareness event November
2012 called ‘Feeding the 5,000 Dublin’ (see
www.feeding5kdublin.org) where we fed 5,000
people a vegetable curry made from vegetables
that would have been rejected by supermarkets.
Proposal:
We propose to empower local communities to hold their own smaller ‘Food Rescue’ dinners
with food that would have been thrown away or rejected by supermarkets, businesses and
restaurants.
We are in the process of developing an organisational and educational pack for communities
where they can enjoy a lovely meal with their neighbours without breaking the bank.
Local champions will be identified to take on this challenge which will not only bring the
community together, but will educate and raise the consciousness on the issue of food waste.
Along with involved individuals, we envision working with local food businesses ranging from
food shops and restaurants to farmers and distributors. This will be a fun event which will be
different for each locality, according to the organisers. Activities might include:







cooking demonstrations,
fruit juice pressing
kids activities,
educational talks,
school programmes,
menu sharing and
left-over food recipe competitions.
Chair: Dr. Ruth McGrath – Directors: Gabrielle Brabazon, Gary Clare, Brendan Bartley; Coordinator: Mindy Byrns O’Brien
Company limited by guarantee. Registered in Ireland no. 275127. Registered office as above. Charity No. CHY13196
This project educates individuals and businesses on this issue and gives them practical advice on
how to reduce their own food waste and save money. Additionally, they can see for themselves
that a wonderful meal can be made with ‘ugly’ food or food that is close to its use-by date.
Sustainability:
We will work with existing
community organisations
such as Tidy Towns,
Transition Towns, GIY
groups, Community Gardens,
allotments and residents
associations that embrace
local citizenship. We will
educate and train these local
champions who will go on to
share the message to others
in their community. It is a
traditional bottom-up
approach to societal change.
Through this initiative, we
will be using social media,
including Facebook and Twitter, to report on events organised throughout the country and what
successes and challenges they have had. We will be sharing leftover recipes and
cooking/shopping hints. We will also create a communications policy to use traditional media as
well to encourage communities to partake in these food rescue events.
We believe that there will be good awareness raising potential through word of mouth by the
participants. Talks and workshops may result after the events to a larger audience throughout the
county.
We have also developed a school pack on food waste that can be used by local schools on the
back of the initiative to keep the issue of food waste in front of people’s minds.