FoodCloud co-founder Aoibheann O’Brien talks Billy Eilish, using tech to redistribute meals worldwide, and her West Cork roots.

SHE may hail from Galway, but West Cork and more precisely her dad Michael’s native Kilbrittain is Aoibheann O’Brien’s spiritual home, while her mum’s mother grew up in Gaggin, just outside Bandon.

Such is her love for Cork that she even married a Midleton man in Kilbrittain over 10 years ago with the wedding reception at the Inchydoney Lodge & Spa.

Trinity graduate Aoibheann, who holds a Masters in Environmental Science, set up FoodCloud 12 years ago with Iseult Ward who she met at Trinity.

Both shared a love of food – but not of waste – and they saw the paradox of good edible food being dumped because people had no way to access it. 

The entrepreneurs realised quickly that using technology was the best way to connect both needs.

Aoibheann said the problem they are trying to solve is that 40% of the food produced globally goes to waste while 700 million people across the world don’t have enough to eat.

‘That is the paradox here that on the one hand you have all this perfect good surplus food that is going to waste and then you have people who can’t access it. This was the reason why we started FoodCloud in 2012 as we felt we had to do something about it,’ said Aoibheann.

Ireland wastes around 835,000 tonnes of food each year, while one in five children go to bed hungry.

‘We still have a lot of need in our communities and especially with the cost of living and everything it’s a big challenge,’ said Aoibheann.

The pair developed an app which matches retailers and food companies with charities enabling the charities to collect the food from the shop after checking what’s available on the app.

‘Tesco were the first to come on board in one store in Dublin and once we could prove that it works others came on board as they too were looking for similar solutions,’ explained Aoibheann.

Another aspect of the FoodCloud model is its warehouses in Little Island, Oranmore in Galway and Tallaght in Dublin which  can take in large volumes of food.

Some of its West Cork partners are involved in this part of their operation including West Cork Eggs, Glenilen, Carbery Group and ABP in Bandon.

‘It’s not necessarily all the time but If they have a big surplus of their products they can come and drop them to our warehouses and the various local charities can draw it down from there,’ said Aoibheann.

Maggie and Aoibheann.

FoodCloud is working with over 500 stores, 200 food companies and about 700 charities across the country who are being supported like West Cork groups such as Feed West Cork, Feed Bandon, Skibbereen Geriatric Society and Clonakilty Community Care.

The technology that they developed here is now being used by food banks internationally like those in UK, Czech Republic and more recently even Kenya.

‘What’s different about us is that we started with the technology which we now share with other companies. We have also found that our technology works in third world countries too. This follows a pilot scheme launch in Kenya in 2023 and we have reached 5m million meals there by the end of last year.’

‘We have 96 staff which is split across the three warehouses as well as a call centre, finance and governance, marketing and a tech team that is mostly focused on scaling the technology nationally and internationally.’

FoodCloud is recognised as a huge success story not just here but internationally. In 2024 it redistributed 79 million meal equivalents across six countries, rescuing 33,230 tonnes of surplus food – that’s an incredible 150 meals a minute.

Since it started FoodCloud has redistributed, in Ireland and internationally, 338,900,000 meals which equals 425,528 tonnes of carbon emissions avoided.

Another aspect of FoodCloud is the AIB Community Meals Programme.

Aoibheann explained: ‘We started it in Dublin and are expanding it this year. We have our kitchen in Clondalkin and we take surplus food and turn it into meals, and they are delivered to charities. We also have volunteer opportunities in the kitchen and warehouses in Cork, Galway and Dublin for corporates and it’s really popular.’

Community volunteers are also an integral part of the business helping with the driving and packing of food from the warehouses.

‘We are very grateful to them and in particular we are looking for more volunteer drivers in Cork. It’s a really rewarding role and you get to meet so many wonderful people along the way.’

What started as a college project has continued to grow and expand and Aoibheann said they are continuously inspired by what’s happening in communities both here and abroad.

‘There is so much good stuff going on in communities and a lot of people may not be aware of it. One of the projects we’re really excited about is working more with farmers and growers. We have a good few donating food through our Growers Project and we are only scratching the surface with this at the moment.

The ultimate dream would be to get every food company in Ireland on board.

And having found out in the past few years that she is related to global superstar Billie Eilish, thanks to ancestry work undertaken by her cousins, meeting Billie’s mum Maggie Baird was a pinch me moment for Aoibheann.

‘We received an email from Support + Feed in LA, which Maggie set up during COVID,’ she recalled. ‘They wanted to have a local connection with organisations like ourselves in all the cities that Billie was playing in and an Australian group similar to us put them in contact with us when they heard she was playing Ireland.

‘Maggie has been out to see our warehouse twice when they visited Ireland. They came back last July during Billie’s ‘Kick Me Hard and Soft’ tour.

FoodCloud was very lucky to be selected as the charity partner where a portion of the ticket sales went to us and we had a stand at the 3Arena during the gig. Maggie also came out to our kitchen in Clondalkin and cooked with us for the morning which was great.’