Today was a crazy day full of busses, walking, and two different site visits. Our second visit of the day was Enterprise Ireland, which is NOT the same as Enterprise car rental companies (lol). In all seriousness though, Enterprise Ireland was a very interesting company. It seems very similar to Bord Bia in a sense that the companies care so much about helping Irish businesses. At EI, they are a government-funded organization that primarily focuses on Irish exports. I got a lot of very cool statistics written down but will save those for my presentation on the company later this week.

Our first visit was one of my favorites of the trip. The facility of Food Cloud was very plain, small, and nothing like some of the big fancy companies we have seen so far. However, I just really liked Food Cloud’s mission to try to reduce the 30% waste of all food. I thought that was an astonishing number, and the fact that they aim to give all of the food they save to those less fortunate is absolutely amazing. Most of the workers are volunteers and are working at Food Cloud solely because they believe in the mission of the company. What I found to be the best part, was when Lauren asked how John expects the business to be sustainable. If Food Cloud was successful in eliminating food waste from companies, then there would be no further need for the company to exist. John’s answer embodied all the Food Cloud stands for, he said: “the goal of every nonprofit is to someday go out of business because they mean you have solved the problem you aimed to fix.” I really loved this response because it is so rare to hear a company putting the good of the earth and its people over making money or staying open. Though it was not a super in-depth tour or presentation, I still loved getting to see this incredible non-profit organization.