Tesco offers more surplus food to community groups in Rochdale

Food being donated by Tesco stores in Rochdale

Charities and community groups in Rochdale are being invited to sign up to receive surplus food from their local Tesco store.

Across the UK the supermarket distributes hundreds of thousands of meals to good causes every week as part of its Community Food Connection scheme, which is run in conjunction with food redistribution charity FareShare and powered by FoodCloud technology.

Almost 7,000 charities and community groups already receive surplus food from Tesco through the award-winning scheme, with recipients including older people’s lunch clubs, school breakfast clubs and charities working with vulnerable and homeless people.

More food is available, and Tesco is encouraging groups in Rochdale to find out more about how they could receive surplus food from the supermarket.

Tesco’s Head of Community, Alec Brown said: “Community Food Connection is making a real difference in communities across the UK, but we know there are more groups that could receive food from the scheme.

“This is the biggest supermarket food redistribution scheme in the UK and I’d encourage any group looking to use food in their work to discover how they could benefit.”

The surplus food available includes fresh produce such as fruit, vegetables, bakery products and chilled food like meat, cheese and ready meals. Groups registered with the Community Food Connection are given scheduled collection days and receive a text alert to tell them what food is available at their local Tesco store. 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 at store level to feed thousands of vulnerable people. We know that the surplus food makes a real difference to the work of these groups, often saving them money which can go towards other valuable services.”

If you are a charity or community group that could benefit from the support of Community Food Connection, to find out more visit:

www.fareshare.org.uk/fareshare-go