Unsold food becomes meals for the needy in supermarket scheme

A SUPERMARKET is calling for charities to register for its free food donation scheme.

Tesco is inviting charities and community groups in and around Macclesfield to register for a new scheme which will see unsold food become meals for vulnerable people across the town.

As part of its ongoing pledge to cut food waste, Tesco’s Community Food Connection programme, with FareShare FoodCloud, recruits and supports charities and community groups, linking them to Tesco stores via a smartphone app that allows store teams to alert them to surplus unsold food items available at the end of each day.

The unsold food is free and includes fresh produce, such as fruit, vegetables and bakery products. Chilled products like meat, dairy and ready meals are also offered.

There have been 350,000 meals donated to people in need via Community Food Connection to date, following a successful pilot in 14 stores last year and a national rollout from March this year, that has seen more than 1,000 charities sign up to the scheme so far.

Rifka Chakkalakal, Community Food Programmes manager at Tesco, said: “No food that can be eaten should go to waste.

“We’re really excited to start working on this initiative to ensure that any unsold food we have is made use of.

“We are looking forward to forging strong links with local charities and community groups in Macclesfield, and to use this initiative to support their efforts to help vulnerable people in our community.”

FareShare FoodCloud is the latest step in Tesco’s work with FareShare on the provision of surplus food.

The partnership spans more than three years and includes activities which make food available from the Tesco supply chain, distribution centres and dotcom centres.

This has seen nine million meals made up of surplus food donated to over 2,200 charities and community groups across the UK.

Any charities or community groups in Macclesfield using food to support people that would like to access the scheme should register their interest by visiting www.fareshare.org.uk/ fareshare-foodcloud.