TESCO stores in Redditch are joining hundreds of others across the UK this weekend to celebrate four years of the supermarket’s surplus food donation scheme.
This Saturday, June 1, colleagues will be showcasing the Community Food Connection scheme, which is run with leading food charity FareShare.
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 that 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 Redditch store has donated 14,450 meals to date.
Alec Brown, head of community at Tesco, said: “This weekend we are celebrating four years of the scheme with our colleagues and customers and we hope this will encourage more groups to sign up so that even more surplus food benefits local groups.”
FareShare chief executive Lindsay Boswell said: “The food that Tesco donates makes a really makes a big difference to local charities and communities across the UK.”
To find out more about Community Food Connection and how local groups can benefit visit the Redditch store on Saturday, June 1 or visit www.tesco.com/community-food-connection
