Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Wednesday, 11 October 2023
Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine
Challenges Facing the Fruit and Vegetable Industry: Discussion
Ms Aoibheann Connor:
Yes, I can take the FoodCloud question. We have worked with FoodCloud for quite a while. Our main goal is to not have to send surplus food to FoodCloud. Our goal is to try to maximise all of our class 1 fruit. We have different types of food waste. Depending on what the food waste is, that affects the channel you can utilise. If we have surplus, our choice is FoodCloud. There are other defects that we would like to utilise more such as wonky fruit, misshapes or scarring on fruit. There is potential in that regard, perhaps not so much in the soft fruit industry but in other products like potatoes, there need to be more outlets. We have a very small market in terms of second-class - there is no frozen outlet. There needs to be something along those lines. On food waste, it is minimal in terms of specifications, as such, and we try to utilise as much as possible.
No comments