All Tesco stores in Northampton donating surplus food town's charities and community groups

More than 21,768 meals have been provided to charities and community groups in Northampton thanks to Tesco's surplus food redistribution scheme.
More than 21,768 meals have been provided to charities and community groups in NorthamptonMore than 21,768 meals have been provided to charities and community groups in Northampton
More than 21,768 meals have been provided to charities and community groups in Northampton

The Community Food Connection programme sees Tesco contact good causes via an app to alert them to surplus unsold food items available at the end of each day, which also prevents food going to waste.

In Northampton Tesco’s initiative has seen 21,768 meals donated to local groups including homeless shelters, community centres, breakfast clubs, and groups providing food to vulnerable older people.

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Tesco’s head of community, Alec Brown, said: “We know that Community Food Connection is making a real difference to communities in Northampton by providing people 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 from the scheme to contact FareShare, as we have the capacity to help even more good causes.”

Since the scheme began, more than 19 million meals - almost 600,00 a week - have been provided to charity and community groups across the UK, saving them money which can be used to provide other services.

Tesco helped develop the nationwide scheme in partnership with food redistribution charity, FareShare using an app created by the small social enterprise FoodCloud.

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Lindsay Boswell, chief executive of FareShare, said: “This is an incredible milestone in store-level food redistribution to charities which Tesco has made possible since developing the programme with FareShare and FoodCloud.

“Tesco has led the way with 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 which can benefit other retailers and their local communities too.”

Tesco and FareShare are calling on charities and community groups across Northampton to register for the scheme, which sees fruit, vegetables, bakery products, and chilled products like meat, cheese and ready meals donated for free to groups that sign up.

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