Falling Fruit Ireland
Urban Harvesting Project
Falling Fruit Ireland is a project to harvest the seasonal glut of local fruit (apples, pears, plums, nuts, etc.) throughout the Dublin area, and countrywide, and to give it to charities that cater for those in need. Each year hundreds of fruit trees go unpicked. Falling Fruit organises a team of volunteers to pick the surplus fruit and distribute it to local charities or other good causes. We liaise with Foodcloud.ie and other charities for distribution of the fruit.
Fruit sources could be in private gardens, on industrial waste sites, roadsides, the grounds of mansions, in backyards, church grounds, hospital car parks, industrial estates, waste land, streets, scrub, derelict property, private businesses, public authority housing, parks, green spaces.
The freshly harvested fruit is given away for free. Falling Fruit is about getting fresh fruit to local people who otherwise wouldn’t have access to it. The first share goes to the owner, the second share to the charity, and volunteers are rewarded with fresh fruit too. When there is an abundance of fruit we encourage people to eat it, juice it, cook with it, freeze it, make jams, preserves etc.
Falling Fruit is also about the prevention of food waste. We aim to have zero waste, so fruit is either eaten, stored, preserved, pressed, or fed to animals. Volunteers often take home the damaged apples (which fall in the process of picking) and use them for pies immediately.
One of the aims of Falling Fruit is to highlight the huge distances our food usually travels before it reaches our mouths. Even when food is in season, it is still imported or travels extensively around the country to processing and distribution points before reaching our plates. Falling Fruit also aims to reduce the carbon footprint by encouraging the use of local food and supporting more local growing, cultivation and harvesting.
The Falling Fruit Urban Harvesting Project was set up in 2015 by Bernie Brannick in association with WeShare. Over the past successful years the project has expanded and grown and Falling Fruit Ireland developed.