MORE than 234,952 meals have been provided to charities and community groups in Cornwall thanks to Tesco’s surplus food redistribution scheme Community Food Connection.

Launceston’s store has helped donate 22,669 meals, Callington’s 18,507, Wadebridge’s 22,281 and Padstow’s 6,281.

The total has been released to mark the roll-out of the scheme across all of Tesco’s stores across the UK. Stores are able to provide surplus food every night.

To date more than 20-million meals have been provided to charities and community groups taking part in the scheme, with food for 600,000 meals a week now being provided to good causes across the UK, saving them money which can be used to provide other services.

In Cornwall, Tesco’s initiative has seen 234,952 meals donated to local groups including homeless shelters, community centres, breakfast clubs, and groups providing food to vulnerable older people.

The Community Food Connection programme is run in conjunction with FareShare and FoodCloud. Good causes are able to link up with local Tesco stores, from small Express stores to big Tesco Extras, via an innovative app that allows store teams to alert them to surplus unsold food items available at the end of each day.

Not only does the scheme benefit the community groups involved, but it also prevents unsold food going to waste.

Mike Drury, lead fresh food manager for Tesco Launceston, explained to the Post how the scheme works in store: “What happens is each evening our duty manager sends a prediction to the food cloud that’s running the tech behind it of what we are likely to have as surplus food in the evening. Stuff that’s fit for human consumption. We don’t want to throw that in the bin. We want to donate to worthy causes.

“They come along, have a look and pretty much choose what they can use. It’s about doing the right thing with surplus food.”

Causes that make use of the food include Gateway 2 New Life and Launceston Memory Café. Mike added: “It seems to go a million miles for the Memory Café. We also have four schools that use it for breakfast clubs and after school clubs.

“The information we have received is that 46% of charities feel they cannot continue without Tesco and this scheme. We’re pleased to be such an integral part of the community.

“The company’s real goal is just to reduce food waste to zero.” Some produce also gets made into animal feeds.

He added: “I don’t work every evening but I have spoken to and met each charity. They are just delighted with any and everything we can send.”

Mike said the managers now have such strong bonds with the charities benefitting from the scheme that ‘we know what they want before they come through the door’.

“It’s a great scheme and it’s one that definitely with us and our standing in the community, one that’s made the biggest inroads.

“This scheme has probably helped us to reach other charities and people locally that we might not have been able to beforehand.

“There is a real big investment in trying to do the right thing for the planet. It’s great to work for a company that seems to really get the need for us to do something and give something back.”

Tesco’s head of community, Alec Brown, said: “We know that Community Food Connection is making a real difference to communities throughout Cornwall 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.”

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

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 Cornwall to register for the scheme, which sees food including fresh produce such as fruit, vegetables and bakery products, as well as chilled products like meat, cheese and ready meals, donated for free to groups that sign up.

If you are a charity or community group that could benefit from the support of Community Food Connection, visit http://fareshare.org.uk/getting-food/fareshare-go-support/ to register.