Tesco’s free food scheme

Left over goods will be distributed by charities

Tesco Ayr will be emptying its shelves and handing over unsold food to those in need early next month.

Tesco Ayr Extra on Whitletts Road and Tesco Auchinleck have teamed up with Community Food Connection and FareShare FoodCloud to distribute left over food to help others.

And the supermarket giant and CFC are calling out to Ayr- based community groups and charities to register interest to benefit from the free food scheme which will provide unsold food including meat, veg and fresh produce.

Head of community food programmes at Tesco, Rachel Finn said: “No food that can be eaten should go to waste and 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 Ayr, and to use this initiative to support their efforts to help vulnerable people in our community.”

There have been 275,000 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 712 charities sign up to the scheme so far.

To find out more or to register interest, visit www. fareshare. org. uk/ fareshare- foodcloud.

Meanwhile, f o o d redistribution charity FareShare Scotland is appealing for volunteers to help collect food donations at the Ayr Tesco store.

They will be in town from Thursday, June 30, until Saturday, July 2, as part of Tesco’s twice- yearly neighbourhood food collection in partnership with FareShare and foodbank charity The Trussell Trust.

This is the UK’s biggest food drive and during the last collection, held in December 2015, the public donated enough food to provide 3.6 million meals for hungry and vulnerable people in the UK.

Vo l u n t e e r s w i l l encourage shoppers to donate store cupboard staples such as pasta, rice, tinned fish and tea, which FareShare will then redistribute – along with the surplus meat, dairy, fruit and veg that it receives from the food industry - to charities and community groups across the region, so that they can provide balanced, nutritious meals to people in need.

Gillian Kynoch, head of FareShare Scotland, says: “Taking part in the neighbourhood food collection is a quick and easy way to make a big impact, and it can be a lot of fun too.

“We’re asking people to give just three hours to help us fight hunger – in that short amount of time, they can help collect enough food for 500 meals, which will make a huge difference to the frontline charities and community groups that we support.”