Isuelt Ward and Food cloud
Iseult Ward founded FoodCloud, a nonprofit that uses technology to connect businesses with local charities to help redistribute food to the poor. She is driven by her compassion for the poor who don’t have enough to eat. Through its app, supermarkets, restaurants, cafeterias and cafes can easily share excess food rather than letting it go to waste. She collects and distributes fresh produce, dairy, meat, baked goods and even processed groceries; all food must be is safe and suitable for redistribution. Both volunteers and paid drivers transport the food from the businesses or from pick up points. She showed her vision, creativity, problem solving and initiative by creating a connection between businesses with excess food and the poor, FoodCloud can bridge the gap between food waste and food insecurity. FoodCloud has grown to about 125 employees since officially starting in 2013 when Iseult Ward was a college student at Trinity College in Ireland, that I know is beautiful because I was there in May of 2026. She persevered and was resilient after first failing with Foodiverse, an app that connected a local farmer’s market with a homeless shelter.
The need is very large because there are about a quarter of a million people in Ireland with moderate to severe food insecurity, and FoodCloud likely meets the need in Ireland. But there are many more over the world and Iseult Ward has shown adaptability in growing FoodCloud into a multi-national and feeding many more hungry people with excess food in the United Kingdom, Czech Republic, and Slovakia. But, it is impossible to feed everyone because people refuse to receive free food because of their pride, mistrust and mental illnesses, to name a few reasons.
She operates in only a few countries and I wonder if FoodCloud would be adaptable to USA? The USA has much more food waste than Ireland or the other countries currently supplied, in part because the USA is so much larger. But distributing to the millions more with food insecurity would require logistics of many magnitudes of order larger than FoodCloud. Lastly, there is competition; others, such as 412 Food Rescue in Pittsburgh and Careit, nationwide, operate with similar models in the USA. It would be interesting to know if Iseult Ward has passion to compete on this grand scale.
Iseult Ward encourages me to start small in trying to succeed as an entrepreneur in nonprofit, charitable work. I have learned the importance of vision, creativity, problem solving, initiative, perseverance, resilience and adaptability from her example.
The need is very large because there are about a quarter of a million people in Ireland with moderate to severe food insecurity, and FoodCloud likely meets the need in Ireland. But there are many more over the world and Iseult Ward has shown adaptability in growing FoodCloud into a multi-national and feeding many more hungry people with excess food in the United Kingdom, Czech Republic, and Slovakia. But, it is impossible to feed everyone because people refuse to receive free food because of their pride, mistrust and mental illnesses, to name a few reasons.
She operates in only a few countries and I wonder if FoodCloud would be adaptable to USA? The USA has much more food waste than Ireland or the other countries currently supplied, in part because the USA is so much larger. But distributing to the millions more with food insecurity would require logistics of many magnitudes of order larger than FoodCloud. Lastly, there is competition; others, such as 412 Food Rescue in Pittsburgh and Careit, nationwide, operate with similar models in the USA. It would be interesting to know if Iseult Ward has passion to compete on this grand scale.
Iseult Ward encourages me to start small in trying to succeed as an entrepreneur in nonprofit, charitable work. I have learned the importance of vision, creativity, problem solving, initiative, perseverance, resilience and adaptability from her example.
2 Comments
Leave a Comment
You must be logged in to post a comment.
I like how FoodCloud takes a problem like food waste and turns it into a way to help people who are struggling with food insecurity. I also think it is interesting that Ward was able to learn from her first failed idea and use that experience to create something that has grown internationally.
Especially in the context of college, this would be an incredible program to be involved with. My church has a very good food pantry, but it only shows how much food is available in my area, and my church is not large enough to address the whole concern. It would be amazing to better distribute this food into other areas.