FoodCloud is a social enterprise devoted to fighting climate change by reducing food waste. By reducing the food waste, FoodCloud has successfully been able to improve both Ireland and countries abroad in which they operate. Although their main goal to reduce the carbon emissions from food waste, the more tangible benefit is that they help to reduce the food insecurity that effects millions across the world. They do so by offering two primary business solutions. The first is the Foodiverse in which they leverage technology in order to connect food business with local charities. From there, the charities are able to provide food to those who are most in need. Secondly, they have warehouse hubs where they are able to receive larger quantities of excess food and break them into smaller and more manageable quantities before distributing them to the charities. Like most charities that exist, they are largely underfunded and are therefore unable to proficiently service those in which they intend to. With the existence of an organization like FoodCloud, these charities are better able to support those in need. It is also crazy to think about how the food waste accounts for more greenhouse gas emissions than the airline industry, so they impact they make environmentally is very significant.
Although it is not externally apparent how they generate revenue to run their operations, FoodCloud has a very successful business model. First, they received support from very notable businessman, like the owner of Ryan Air, that are able to connect to connect the business with high-net-worth individuals and corporations. This funding is very significant. They also are very marketable to companies because they want to appear sustainable to attract customers as it is becoming more important today and they are able to eliminate the disposal costs of their excess food. They also get some food from a European organization for free, so they have access to food during the downtimes where businesses don’t have much excess food. They also partner with DHL to support their logistics.
The most innovative aspect of their business is no doubt the technology that supports the Foodiverse platform. This technology allows them to connect both invested parties, and it particularly interesting that they give out the technology to companies in foreign markets. This really shows that they invested in creating meaningful change as they could easily sell this technology to other companies for a significant profit. I think it would be really beneficial to incorporate AI into this platform to automate the matching process, but they are currently unable to make this transformation.
