AIB and Irish non-profit group FoodCloud are renewing their partnership for another three years and launching a new community meals programme that will see a new meal service offered to charity partners.

FoodCloud is dedicated to fighting food waste and food insecurity. The deal is expected to mean an additional 200,000 community meals, saving an additional 100 tonnes of surplus food from going to waste.

The group said the community meals programme will be “especially valuable” to charities who are limited in terms of cooking facilities, resources and culinary skills.

FoodCloud co-founder Aoibheann O’Brien said the partnership with AIB over the past six years has been “instrumental” in supporting FoodCloud to build capacity in its core redistribution activities, and in the development of a large-scale volunteering programme.

“We have seen more than 2,000 AIB colleagues completing over 11,000 volunteer hours – the enthusiasm, commitment and professionalism of AIB volunteers has made a significant contribution to FoodCloud’s mission, a world where no good food goes to waste,” she said.

“The vulnerability of our global food system, and the challenges of food waste and food insecurity, have been made even more apparent since we started our partnership over six years ago.

“But there is now widespread recognition that food redistribution has a critical role to play in addressing these major global problems, so our focus in FoodCloud is to have a technology-led, innovative approach engaging in food rescue at speed and at scale.

“FoodCloud is facing into the next three years with a sense of urgency to further scale the impact of our work. We are immensely proud to be part of, and contribute towards, AIB’s leadership position on the sustainability agenda.”

AIB corporate affairs director Barry Field said: “The partnership has to date helped FoodCloud redistribute 12,000 tonnes of surplus food or over 28 million meals, avoiding 38,409 tonnes of CO2 emissions.

“According to the latest UNEP Food Waste Index Report 2024, an alarming 1 billion meals are wasted every day worldwide, contributing to environmental degradation and exacerbating food insecurity.

“To celebrate the launch, a special event was held to mark World Environment Day 2024 and emphasise the importance of community meals services like Meals-on-Wheels and breakfast clubs, highlighting their value in the creation of sustainable food systems.

“The community cooking event brought together young members from Dublin based community partners Whitefriar, St John Bosco Youth Centre, Walk, and representatives from Northside Partnership for lunch dished up by volunteer cooks from AIB.”