Food Rescue Event


While April 1st is a day for practical jokes and laughter, food waste is no joke. Leitrim County Council, to raise awareness of the amount of food we all waste, is supporting the latest ‘Food Rescue’ event at Lough Rynn Castle, Mohill on April Fools day. Ireland AM chef, Joe Shannon and Mohill-native Ethna Reynolds (the ’Burlesque Chef’) will pool their talents to serve up delicious dishes made entirely of food that was destined to be thrown away. Not only will attendees sample lovely food, but they will also learn how to reduce their food waste and compost the remainder.

‘Food Rescue’ is an initiative developed by VOICE (Voice of Irish Concern for the Environment, one of the main organisers of the successful ‘Feeding the 5,000 Dublin’ event in November 2012), which takes its message about food waste to the local level. This campaign aims to drive awareness around the problem of food waste in Ireland - 30% of what we buy ends up in the bin - and highlight the positive solutions to tackle this problem.


Carmel Coll, Environment Awareness Officer with Leitrim County Council, hopes that this event will inspire individuals to think before they throw away good food. “We will learn how to reduce food waste as well as enjoy a community meal made out of ingredients that were destined to be thrown away because they were too close to their ‘use by’ dates, were bruised or over-ripe, or never made it to the shops because they were ‘ugly’. Additionally, since the recent roll out of the brown bins for organic waste, we hope this event will educate residents about the importance of not only reducing their waste, but managing their waste properly by using their new brown bins.”

“Food waste is an enormous problem internationally”, commented Mindy O’Brien, Coordinator at VOICE. “In Ireland alone, we throw away one million of tonnes annually, 300,000 tonnes of which come from households. This event will highlight the travesty of food waste, while having a bit of fun making delicious food from surplus ingredients.”

Leitrim ‘Food Rescue’ is kindly funded by Leitrim County Council.

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There is a €5 admission fee for this event which will be donated to North West Simon Community.


For further Information Contact:

Carmel Coll
Leitrim County Council
ccoll@leitrimcoco.ie
071 9650400 Ext. 802

Mindy O’Brien
VOICE
mindy@voiceireland.org
(01) 642 5741 ; 087 289 3942