Supermarket’s big food boost
14,000 meals have been available
More than 14,000 meals have been provided to charities and community groups in Wishaw thanks to Tesco’s surplus food redistribution scheme.
The total has been released to mark the roll-out of the Community Food Connection scheme across all of Tesco’s stores across the UK.
In Scotland, Tesco’s initiative has seen two million meals donated to local groups including homeless shelters, community centres, breakfast clubs, and groups providing food to vulnerable older people.
The Community Food Connection programme is run in conjunction with FareShare and FoodCloud.
Good causes are able to link up with local Tesco stores, from small Express stores to big Tesco Extras, via an innovative app that allows store teams to alert them to surplus unsold food items available at the end of each day.
Not only does the scheme benefit the community groups involved, but it also prevents unsold food going to waste.
Tony Mc E l roy , h e a d of communications for Tesco in Scotland, said: “We know that Community Food Connection is making a real difference to Wishaw people by providing those in need with meals from food that would otherwise go to waste.
“Now that all of our stores are taking part in Community Food Connection there are more opportunities than ever for groups to benefit from the free food provided under the scheme. I would invite any group that thinks they could benefit to contact FareShare.”
Tesco helped develop the nationwide scheme in partnership with food redistribution charity, FareShare using an app created by the small social enterprise FoodCloud.
Lindsay Boswell, chief executive of FareShare, said: “This is an incredible milestone in store- level food redistribution to charities.
“Tesco have led the way by introducing such a step- change in tackling their store surplus food and having seen the scheme grow and create such impact for vulnerable people, it proves that it can deliver very obvious results.”
Tesco and FareShare are calling on charities and community groups across Scotland to register for the scheme, which sees food including fresh produce such as fruit, vegetables and bakery products, as well as chilled products like meat, cheese and ready meals, donated for free to groups that sign up.
If you are a charity or community group that could benefit from the support of Community Food Connection, visit http://fareshare.org. uk/getting-food/fareshare-go-support/ to register.