Prevention of Food Waste in Offaly & Westmeath – Cookery Demonstrations

Westmeath and Offaly local authorities cooperated to produce a joint project on preventing food waste.

The activities involved included composting evenings, cookery demonstrations and food waste prevention information distributed at events, such as the Tullamore Show 2015, which attracts a large audience (60,000) predominantly from the Westmeath and Offaly areas.

The two cookery demonstrations featuring Catherine Fulvio, one at the Tullamore Show and the other in the Radisson Blue hotel, were well attended and attracted a good deal of media interest.

The event was widely advertised in the media and on a range of web sites including Catherine Fulvio’s web site, the local authority web sites and local web sites. A radio and news paper campaign was launched as well as dissemination of information on each Council’s website and internal emails.

The event got national coverage on the online newspaper Journal.ie.

The joint approach between the two local authorities worked well for a number of reasons. Firstly, there was a good deal of synergy between earlier projects the two areas had worked on separately (food waste prevention and composting). Secondly, the geographical closeness of the areas meant that sharing resources would result in a stronger campaign, for example, as the local media serves both areas, the united campaign gained maximum coverage and provided value for money.