Tesco provides more than two million meals this Christmas to communities across the country

Charities and community groups up and down the country have received the equivalent of two million meals’ worth of food in the two weeks leading up to Christmas thanks to Tesco’s Community Food Connection.

The Community Food Connection is Tesco’s food redistribution programme, set up with food charity FareShare in 2015. The programme sees all Tesco stores providing unsold food to charities and community groups in the FareShare network across the UK. Tesco also redistributes food to people in the local community via food-sharing app, Olio.

At the end of each day, Tesco stores send a message via the FoodCloud app to FareShare-supported groups or Olio Food Waste Heroes who collect the food from stores, free of charge, taking all or part of the food to be redistributed or turned into meals in community kitchens.

Since launching the programme, Tesco’s Community Food Connection scheme has grown into the biggest food redistribution initiative of its kind, and to date has provided more than 145 million meals to over 3,900 charities who depend on the food they receive to be able to support people facing hunger.

One group that regularly collects food from Tesco is Roots and Fruits, a charity in East Lothian aiming to improve the diet of people in the community and to address health inequalities. Roots and Fruits works with individuals, families and organisations throughout East Lothian, providing services to allow them to eat more healthily by running a food pantry, shop and delivering fruit and veg boxes to approximately 45 households each week. They collect food from Tesco Musselburgh Extra every week.

Pamela McKinlay, Project Manager at Roots and Fruits, said: “We aim to reduce isolation, offer a warm, sociable setting to meet friends, and provide access to information and advice. We currently work with 33 families in need, each week providing extra food, support and advice.

“The FareShare food is put outside for folks to help themselves - we receive things like bread, rolls, cakes, fruit and veg. Our families rely on this food to help them through the week.

“We also do a Christmas toy appeal and we have 56 children on our list for this year. We provide Christmas gifts for the older people in the community who otherwise may not get anything too.”

Head of Communities at Tesco, Claire de Silva, said: “Food banks and frontline charities are facing record levels of need this winter as the rising cost of living pushes more and more families into food uncertainty. Good food should never go to waste and in line with the spirit of the Sunday Express Warm Hearts at Christmas campaign, we like to spread a little happiness in the run up to Christmas through Community Food Connection.

FareShare Chief Executive, George Wright, added: “We’re delighted to work with Tesco on this innovative programme, ensuring more people in the community have food on their plates. This year alone, Tesco has supported almost 2,800 charities with more than 53 tonnes of food through Community Food Connection – that’s 28 million meals prevented from going to waste.

“We support a wide range of organisations, like after school clubs and food pantries, that are providing essential services to their local communities, and receiving a steady stream of food from Tesco helps them to feed the people that need it most.”

The Community Food Connection programme runs year-round at Tesco stores across the UK. The supermarket also provided a further two million meals to FareShare and the Trussell Trust this winter, generously donated by the supermarket’s customers and colleagues as part of its annual Winter Food Collection.

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Notes to editors:

About FareShare
FareShare is the UK’s national network of charitable food redistributors, made up of 18 independent organisations. Together, they support almost 8,500 frontline charities and community groups. Tesco partners with FareShare on Community Food Connection, providing surplus food from our distribution centres and at our food collection and in store collection points.

About OLIO
OLIO is a mobile app for food-sharing that aims to reduce food waste. It does this by connecting people who have surplus food with people who need it. Tesco partners with OLIO for its Community Food Connection programme.