FoodCloud brings everyone in the food supply chain together, sharing good food that might otherwise have been wasted, to support a strong circular food system with community at its heart. Food donated to FoodCloud is shared with communities - providing a secondary low or no cost food supply that builds resilience and sustainability into community food projects - and the need for this food supply has never been more clear than right now!

We continue to see an unrelenting demand for support with the cost of food in our communities.  The cost of everything has gone up, and food is no different. Although inflation has slowed, grocery prices continued to increase year-on-year , with overall food prices rising by 5% this year to September 2025.  This affects everyone, from a lone parent trying to feed his or her family, to a community meal on wheels service trying to keep their prices affordable while also being able to keep the lights on, vans on the road and customers and volunteers happy and engaged.

Partnering to support rural communities

However, we recognise that accessing food donations and surplus food does not come without challenges. We're observing a decline in local (rural and urban) retail donation volumes as shops get smarter at reducing waste, and geographical constraints and transport costs provide significant barriers to accessing food via our Regional Hubs for many community organisations nationwide, but most especially in very rural communities. 

Short Supply Chains Fund & Golden Jubilee Trust Co-funding

With the Short Supply Chains Fund from the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine FoodCloud initiated the Hub and Host Project, helping us to address these access inequities through establishing partnerships with key regional community partners that are ready to expand surplus food sharing in underserved rural areas. Now, with further funding from Golden Jubilee Trust, we are excited to realise the full potential of this transformative project. 

The first phase (2025) of the Hub and Host Project will:

• fund the transport of surplus food from our FoodCloud regional Hubs to 3 rural ‘Host’ locations for key ‘Host’ partners to arrange onward delivery to local community organisations. 

Once a steady core supply of food is delivered, the project will move into its second phase (2026) further collaborating with these ‘FoodCloud Hosts’ to ;

• conduct research into best practices and past examples of how best to conduct mentoring and training with the partnership organisations 
• provide resources to empower and support the Hosts themselves to further advance food redistribution in their community through local engagement with donors and community groups that strengthen their own local surplus food donation and sharing supply chains. 
• complete a report with recommendations, in order to develop and refine how to continue these partnerships long-term and beyond this funding period.

Pilot in partnership with FoodShare Kerry

Our first partnership under phase 1 of this project was with FoodShare Kerry. Based in Tralee, FoodShare Kerry fights food waste and combats food poverty by connecting surplus food sources with local charities and community projects.  FoodShare Kerry has extended the reach of surplus food, sourced by FoodCloud, to rural communities in north Kerry. 

Once a week FoodCloud takes an order of food from 3 community groups, Buds Ballyduff Family Resource Centre, The Grove Addiction Treatment Centre in Ardfert and Novas in Tralee. Each group orders exactly what they can use, and FoodCloud packs up their orders for FoodShare to collect each Monday morning, to deliver directly to each organisation on the same day.

And that is not all! The project also enables FoodShare Kerry to access more food to support smaller groups in their community who need help with snacks and treats for their services and events from time to time.

Impact So Far:

Redistributed 5550 kgs of surplus food  (13,230 Meals -  Equivalent)

Saving 9.69 tonnes of CO2 equivalent emissions

To 8 Kerry community organisations

Supporting them to: 

• Keep down their rising food costs in their own services 
• Provide a new food project that they could not otherwise 
• Offer foods directly to their service users to cook themselves to foster independence, enhance life-skills 

"People are really struggling, [..] remember there is a human story behind the cold statistics, [giving] something as simple as a box of cereal or a selection box can mean more to a person than simply something to eat,  it can make a world of difference to how a person feels” - Nora (Buds)

Closing out 2025 with Pilots in Kilkenny and Donegal

We are currently working with 2 Host partners in South County Kilkenny and County Donegal, to strengthen our regional supply chain reaching up to 25 more community groups across those counties.

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