Tesco offers more surplus food to community groups this Easter

Across the UK Tesco redistributes a million meals worth of surplus food a month to good causes as part of its Community Food Connection scheme, run in conjunction with food charity FareShare and powered by FoodCloud technology.

Community Food Connection enables some 7,000 charities and community groups to pick up free food from Tesco each week, but some of those groups take a break during school holidays, which means Tesco can offer free surplus food to even more organisations over Easter.

Head of Community at Tesco, Alec Brown, said:

“We know that there are some charities that may offer holiday clubs, or groups that put on special events over the Easter holidays, and it is exactly those sort of groups that we want to hear from.

”Whatever time of year it is, we would much rather that unsold food is put to good use in the community, and feeds people first, rather than going to waste.“

The free food includes fresh produce such as fruit, vegetables and bakery products, and chilled food like meat, cheese and ready meals. Groups registered with Community Food Connection are given scheduled collection days and receive a text alert to tell them what food is available. They can then choose what they want from the surplus food on offer.

Lindsay Boswell, Chief Executive of FareShare, said:

”We support many amazing frontline charities which use in date surplus food from Tesco to feed thousands of vulnerable people right throughout the year. However, some groups, such as children’s breakfast clubs, close over the school holidays, which means there is even more food available – so don’t miss out"

If you are a charity or community group that could benefit from the support of Community Food Connection this Easter, register your interest here.

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Community Food Connection:

• Tesco’s Community Food Connection, delivered in partnership with food redistribution charity FareShare, has now donated over 30 million meals worth of surplus food to nearly 7,000 local charities and community groups. The programme is currently live and operating in all Tesco stores.
• Charities and community groups interested in registering for Community Food Connection, can do so at fareshare.org.uk/fareshare-go The sign-up process can take 6-8 weeks to complete.
• Tesco won the Building Stronger Communities award at the Business in the Community Responsible Business Awards 2017 - the award recognises Tesco’s efforts to tackle food waste in our stores with its surplus food redistribution scheme, Community Food Connection.
• Tesco and FareShare won the Sustainable Futures Award for the UK rollout of Community Food Connection at the IGD Awards in October 2016.
• Tesco and FareShare won the Partnership of the Year award at the 2018 Responsible Business Awards for their work on the Community Food Connection scheme.
• Tesco and FareShare have worked in partnership for the last three years on Community Food Connection, Tesco’s Food Collection and on ensuring surplus food from the Tesco supply chain, distribution centres and dotcom centres is donated to the organisation to feed people in need.

FareShare is the UK’s largest food redistribution charity, with 21 Regional Centres across the country. FareShare saves nearly 17,000 tonnes of good surplus food from right across the food supply chain and redistributes it to nearly 10,000 charities and community groups across the UK. These charities provide meals as part of their services to people in need – such as children’s breakfast clubs, day clubs for older people, domestic violence refuges, homeless shelters and drug and alcohol rehab units.

In 2017/18 FareShare provided enough food for over 36 million meals (worth over £28 million to the charity sector in savings), which helped to feed over 770,000 people every week.