Surplus food pledged to community groups

Charities and community groups across Renfrewshire are being invited to receive free surplus food from Tesco.

Across the UK the supermarket donates hundreds of thousands of meals to good causes every week as part of its Community Food Connection scheme, run in conjunction with food charity FareShare.

Community Food Connection enables 7,000 charities and community groups to pick up free food from Tesco, but many school-operated groups take a break during the summer holidays, meaning food that would normally be donated could go to waste.

To combat that, and to ensure that food reaches people who need it most, Tesco is reaching out to charities and community groups to find out how they could benefit.

“We are encouraging local groups who do to get in touch with FareShare, to find out if our surplus food could support their work in the community,” said Tony McElroy, head of communications for Tesco in Scotland.

The free food includes fresh produce such as fruit, vegetables and bakery products and chilled food like meat, cheese and ready meals.

Groups registered with the Community Food Connection are given scheduled collection days and receive a text alert to tell them what food is available.

They can then choose what they want from the surplus food on offer.

If you are a charity or community group that could benefit from the support of Community Food Connection visit www.fareshare.org. uk/fareshare-go.