Beyond food banks - novel approaches

Dr Sinéad Furey is a Senior Lecturer on the Food Business and Innovation undergraduate degree programme in Ulster University Business School, lecturing on food and consumer policy and legislation including active citizenship and sustainability. Her research interests are food insecurity and food policy. Her food insecurity research focuses on its definition and measurement, and developing an associated risk indicator to map under-served areas with respect to food access and co-existing poverties. She is working with local councils to co-design food access interventions.

Rachel Mulqueen is Community Engagement Lead at FoodCloud, where she leads efforts to build a more active, visible, and supported network of community organisations working with surplus food. Her role focuses on centring community voices and enabling the growth of community food access models. With a background in design research, Rachel has delivered social impact projects across the public and non-profit sectors, including an evaluation of Strand 2 of Pobal’s Community Climate Action Programme - Understanding How Inclusive Community-Based Climate Action Can Be Scaled-Up - which was launched at their Climate Conference in June 2025, and the co-design of a climate action toolkit for marginalised groups. Her work is rooted in a community-first, systems change approach.

Dr Emma Beacom is a Lecturer and Co-Director of the BSc Food Marketing & Entrepreneurship programme in the Department of Food Business and Development at University College Cork, lecturing on food marketing, food business sustainability and consumer behaviour. Her research interests include food poverty, social supermarkets, food choice and sustainable diets. Her food poverty research to date has examined definition, measurement approaches, predictors, and policy, community and business response, and she is currently leading on a project related to development and management of social supermarkets.

Yvonne Fleming has volunteered and worked in the not for profit sector for over 30 years in Ireland and overseas. Yvonne is a Senior Manager in Crosscare with oversight of a range of initiatives – one being Crosscare food services.

Róisín joined Homeless Connect as a Floor Supervisor for its Fareshare project in 2021. With a background in managing people and projects, and developing teams within the pharmaceutical and communications industries, she has combined this skillset with a genuine passion for helping those in need, to support the work of Homeless Connect. Róisín was appointed Operations Manager in 2024 where she manages the day-to-day running of the FareShare NI warehouse and the food delivery service, ensuring all policies and procedures are compliant with FareShare UK. She is responsible for the recruitment and retention of Community Food Members.

Robert leads the Vincentian MESL Research Centre at SVP. Working on the Minimum Essential Standard of Living (MESL) research since 2010, his work has focused on the expansion of budget standards research in Ireland, developing its applications to assessing income adequacy, policy analysis and informing evidence-based recommendations. He has a particular research interest in income adequacy and approaches to measuring poverty and social exclusion. Robert is a graduate of Trinity College Dublin and Queens University Belfast, he is a founding member of the Irish Living Wage Technical Group and sits on the Roadmap for Social Inclusion steering group.