Lee Mill Tesco store donates more than 100,000 meals to local groups

Tesco’s Lee Mill Extra store has donated more than 100,000 meals-worth of surplus food to local charities and community groups.

It is one of 11 Tesco stores across the UK which have donated 100,000 meals of food that would have otherwise gone to waste through the supermarket’s Community Food Connection Scheme, run in conjunction with food charity FareShare.

The figures have been released as Tesco stores across the UK to mark the fourth anniversary of the scheme, which has now provided more than 36 million meals-worth of food.
Food from the Lee Mill store has helped to support a number of local charities and good causes, including Devon and Cornwall Food Action

Alan Dunne, chairman of Devon and Cornwall Food Action, said: “The food donated by the store has made a real difference to our work of actively eradicating food poverty and to thousands of people’s lives across the counties. Without these donations the misery of food poverty would escalate to seriously unmanageable levels.

“We’re always very grateful to Tesco for the food donations they provide. It ensures that those in need within our communities can access healthy food and improve their lifestyles.

“So far, we have saved 80 community groups across Devon and Cornwall more than £400,000 on food, which means they can then spend that money on their core aims. It also means that tonnes of food doesn’t go to landfill, which in turn saves tonnes of carbon emissions.”

Tesco’s Head of Community Alec Brown congratulated colleagues at the Lee Mill store for helping to make the scheme such a success.

“Community Food Connection has gone from strength to strength over the past four years,” he said. “We have rolled out the scheme to all of our 2,600-plus stores and the fact that our Lee Mill store has now donated so many meals shows the difference the scheme can make.

“Their efforts mean that thousands of meals-worth of food that would otherwise have gone to waste have instead gone to help feed people through the amazing work of community groups and charities here in the South West.

“The success of the scheme has helped us to significantly reduce the food waste from our stores and we want to make sure even more of our food surplus goes to charity and community groups in the year ahead.”

FareShare Chief Executive Linsday Boswell also congratulated the Lee Mill Extra store on donating so many meals through the scheme.

He said: “Around a third of all the food that is grown in the world goes to waste, so we are proud of our partnership with Tesco, which has allowed us to divert thousands of tonnes of food to feed people rather than going to waste.

“At FareShare we work closely with some 7,000 groups that now receive surplus food from Tesco, and our community coordinators see week-in week-out the difference that the surplus food us making in settings such as community centres, pensioners’ lunch clubs, groups helping the homeless and children’s breakfast clubs.

“The Lee Mill store is a great example of how the scheme can both tackle food waste and provide food to support the work of groups who are at the heart of their local community.”
For more details of Community Food Connection visit: https://sustainability.tescoplc.com/sustainability/food-waste/topics/own...