Today was a long day filled with a lot of traveling and very interesting site visits. We started the day by taking a long bus ride to FoodCloud where we met John. John is a business development manager for FoodCloud Hubs. We started out in a small room listening to John talk about the gist of the company and some of the interesting facts about it. I found it amazing that the company was able to grow to its size in 4 years. FoodCloud is located across Ireland with multiple offices. After a short presentation we were able to walk into the storage unit to see all of the food they have available to be picked up. The inside of the storage unit reminded me of Costco in a way. They had a couple aisles with huge shelves full of food. When John spoke to us about how they make a profit I found it to be a very creative way. They charged 1.5 euros per food unit (differs for each food) but 2 euros if they have to deliver it. This is a clever way to make charities feel like the food was more valuable then if it was free.

After FoodCloud, we were fortunate enough to visit Enterprise Ireland. My first impression of Enterprise Ireland was ‘this company is very clean and put together.’ They had refreshments for us when we walked in and we all got out own name tags. The company had a planned schedule down to the minute of what guest speaker we would have and what they would talk to us about. The first speech was very helpful in teaching us the main background of the company. My favorite speaker was the last speaker. She spoke to us about the opportunities Enterprise Ireland has for newly graduated students. It was so cool how she spoke about the want for female entrepreneurs. I loved hearing about some of the entrepreneurs and their ideas they brought to Enterprise Ireland. I would have loved to hear about more companies they invested in, but overall the visit was very informative and structured.