Coca-Cola & Tesco thank customers as 70,000 meals donated to FoodCloud

Main feature image: Pictured is Broadcaster and Content Creator, Cassie Stokes

Coca-Cola HBC Ireland and Northern Ireland were today joined by partner FoodCloud at the Liffey Valley Tesco store as they announced the impact of this year’s ‘Win a meal, Give a meal’ campaign, which has resulted in 70,000 meals being donated to the social enterprise this Christmas.

As part of the campaign launched earlier this month, shoppers in Tesco stores across Ireland were in with a chance to win a meal and for every entry received, Coca-Cola HBC donated a meal to FoodCloud. Coca-Cola HBC today thanked customers for their engagement in the campaign which will see 70,000 meals delivered through FoodCloud to support communities in need across the festive season.

FoodCloud is a not-for-profit social enterprise working to tackle food waste and food security. These challenges are addressed by redistributing surplus food from the food industry to a network of over 650 community groups across Ireland. To date, FoodCloud has helped to ensure that 250 million meals have gone to people in need and 105,000 tonnes of food was not wasted.

Coca-Cola HBC has a long-standing partnership with both FoodCloud in the Republic of Ireland and its counterpart FareShare in Northern Ireland, which has seen Coca-Cola HBC provide financial and product donations as well as volunteer hours. Earlier this year, the company announced the expansion of this partnership and its investment in supporting the delivery of FoodCloud’s Food Sourcing Strategy. The strategy will take a holistic approach to reducing food waste across the island of Ireland and will focus on FoodCloud’s objective of doubling the volume of food redistributed to 5,100 tonnes per year by 2025.

Pictured above L-R is Sam Watkins, Packed Good Director, Tesco Ireland, Cassie Stokes, Broadcaster & Content Creator,

Aoibheann O’Brien, Co-Founder FoodCloud and Tom Burke, Corporate Affairs & Sustainability Director Coca-Cola HBC Ireland & Northern Ireland

Over the past three years, Coca-Cola HBC has donated over €105,000, the equivalent of 315,000 meals, to FoodCloud. Today’s announcement builds on this continued partnership between the two organisations and is another way in which Coca-Cola HBC is seeking to not only reduce food waste but also reduce carbon emissions and accelerate the country’s journey to NetZero.

Tom Burke, Corporate Affairs and Sustainability Director, Coca-Cola HBC Ireland and Northern Ireland, said: “We want to thank Tesco for coming on board once again this year and taking part in our ‘Win a meal, give a meal’ campaign. As a result of the generosity of Tesco shoppers’, 70,000 meals will be redistributed to communities that can benefit from perfectly good surplus food this festive season through our partner, FoodCloud.

“Over the past three years, we have seen our partnership with FoodCloud grow as we look to support the incredible work it does to reduce food waste. Earlier this year, we announced our support for FoodCloud’s new Food Sourcing Strategy, which will find innovative ways to double the volume of food redistributed to over 5,100 tonnes per year by 2025. It’s a key part of our journey as a company, but also as a country, to NetZero and we look forward to continuing to deepen our partnership with the FoodCloud team in the coming years.”

Aoibheann O’Brien, Co-Founder of FoodCloud said, “FoodCloud has a long-standing partnership with both Coca-Cola HBC and Tesco, so this campaign is particularly special as it enables us to work closely with them both to achieve our common goal of reducing food waste and distributing meals to those that need them most this Christmas. It’s great to see how engaged customers were during the campaign. Each year we hope to educate the public that little bit more about the work of FoodCloud through this initiative and how critical it is to our entire ecosystem and in our collective mission to create more sustainable communities and achieve a NetZero future.”

Sam Watkins, Packaged Foods Director, Tesco Ireland said, “This year Tesco and FoodCloud celebrated ten years of partnership. During that time the partnership has saved millions of meals, helped thousands of charitable organisations and transformed the conversation around store level surplus. We’re proud of our partnership and legacy with FoodCloud and were delighted to once again collaborate with Coca-Cola HBC on their now annual ‘Win a Meal, Give a Meal’ campaign this Christmas. It has been great to see the engagement across Tesco stores in the campaign which will result in the distribution of 70,000 meals to communities across Ireland.”