Gavin Ireland

Gavin is passionate about understanding how plants and fungi live and work and how we can use them to our benefit without causing harm to the environment. Having had a very ‘outdoors’ childhood in the 1970s, Gavin spent ten years serving in the armed forces where he learned about emergency food and first aid (including the beginnings of foraging and herbalism). After a second (third?) career in IT, Gavin reignited his passion for the natural world and started studying foraging in earnest. One thing led to another and before you know it he’s studying herbalism and botany too, and running regular walks in and around London to introduce others to the fascinating world all around us.

Gavin formed Found Food in 2012 as a personal database of his learnings, so he would always be able to look up where he had learned something from. In 2017 Found Food became a blog to share some foraging related musings and experiences, them in 2023 Gavin started making his database of foraging information available to subscribers, and it has continued to grow ever since.