Over one million tonnes of food waste disposed of each year in Ireland

FoodSpace, a division of Apleona Ireland which operate over 16 sites throughout Ireland are launching their Zero Food Waste campaign for 2020. The award-winning sustainable Food Service company are championing how to get the most from food so that together households, food businesses and the general public will learn how to be as responsible as possible when it comes to what they are eating, buying and unnecessarily throwing away.

In Ireland there is over one million tonnes of food waste disposed of each year, around 1/3 of this comes from households.

In 2019 FoodSpace Ireland were awarded their second Three Star sustainability rating from the Sustainable Restaurant Association (Food Made Good). This is following on from the company winning the “Celebrate Local and Seasonal” award at the Sustainable Restaurant Association’s annual industry awards in 2018.

“We are planning to host a series of zero waste and sustainable lifestyle classes at our FoodSpace Location INK Café in Dun Laoghaire and also through our social media channels, to ensure that people from across Ireland can get involved.

Our goal here is to highlight how much food we waste on a daily basis and how unnecessary this is.

Wasting so much food leads to revenue losses in our businesses and also in our household budgets. You just have to see the stats on food waste in Ireland, to know we have to act responsibly now. This has long been a mission of our team at FoodSpace and this year we want to ensure we are part of the change in helping Ireland to stop Food Waste and be more conscious of what we throw in the bin,” explained Grainne Carberry of FoodSpace Ireland.

The FoodSpace ‘Reducing Food Waste’ program will be a very practical, hands on approach- Using what we have here on our Island and making beautiful food available to people. Championing what’s in season, what you can do with the entire veg, meat cuts and fish so that each household knows how they themselves can adapt and cut down on the food waste being created,” said Conor Spacey

“It is not just about being plant based, vegan or cutting back on food groups but also about enjoying a wholefood and locally sourced ingredients in our diet. Eating avocados from Ecuador in Ireland is never going to be the right thing to do environmentally, so let’s use what we have and create dishes, flavours and meals we can all enjoy. We are hoping that through this program and our Zero Waste Journey workshops we can help take the mystery and confusion out of what foods we really should be eating for health, enjoyment and the planet,” said Conor.

The biggest impact on the health of our planet comes from our food system – specifically what we eat and how we produce it. By demanding lesser-known ingredients from sustainable sources we can help shift the food system by encouraging the growth and supply of a more diverse range of crops. This agricultural diversity is good for soil health, adds nutritional value to our diets, builds climate resilience and opens up new routes to market for small-holder farmers and specialist producers.

The FoodSpace ‘Zero Waste Food’ program with Conor Spacey will take place on Thursday 8th October at 7pm in The Studio , dlr Lexicon (entrance through INK Café) Tickets, €30 are on sale via Eventbrite from Monday 21st September. To find out how you can cut your food waste log onto https://food-space.com/ or check out FoodSpace Ireland across Social Media Platforms.