WORCESTER’s Tesco stores will join hundreds of others across the UK this weekend to celebrate four years of the supermarket’s surplus food donation scheme.
Staff will be showcasing the supermarket giant’s Community Food Connection scheme, which is run in conjunction with leading food charity FareShare, on Saturday (June 1).
They will be talking to customers about how the scheme works to provide free surplus food and inviting local charities and community groups who already receive food from the scheme to encourage even more to sign up.
The Community Food Connection scheme ensures every Tesco store in the UK is able to donate surplus food at the end of the day to charities and community groups. It uses an innovative app developed by social enterprise FoodCloud, to notify groups each night about the food available for collection.
Today, more than 7,000 groups are able to pick up free food from their local Tesco store. Since the scheme began, Tesco has donated more than 36 million meals to those groups, with more than a million meals a month now being donated. The Worcester store has donated 76,630 meals to date.
Alec Brown, head of community at Tesco, said: “At Tesco we firmly believe that no good food should go to waste that is why we set up our Community Food Connection scheme, which ensures that our surplus food is put to good use in the local community.
FareShare chief executive Lindsay Boswell said: “The food Tesco donates makes a really makes a big difference to local charities and communities across the UK.
“We are proud to have been able to work with Tesco over the past four years to create this pioneering scheme, which is the biggest of its kind in the UK. We hope that by celebrating this milestone with Tesco colleagues and customers we can reach out to even more charities and community groups so that they can receive the free surplus food that Tesco is able to offer.
Visit the store on Saturday or log on to www.tesco.com/community-food-connection for more.
