Tesco delivers 2m meals through charity partners
Every year, hundreds of millions of Euro worth of unsold food is discarded by retailers. That's all changing, with the rise of discarded supermarkets and charities like FoodCloud
18 October 2016
Retailers all over the world are cottoning on to the positive effects of donating their surplus and unsold food rather than discarding it (after all, aswell as being the right thing to do, it can do wonders for the image). Through charity donations and now surplus food supermarkets selling at rock-bottom prices, a lot of good is being done.
This week, Tesco revealed that it has delivered an estaimed 2m meals for Irish charities and support groups through its partnership with FoodCloud, equating to around 20,000 meals to good causes every week.
Out of 148 Irish stores, 109 Tesco outlets support local charities through surplus food donations. The retailer says it aims to increase this to all stores by the end of this year. The company also says it encourages others businessrs to take part in the initiative.
As a knock-on effect, the donations help the environment as more than 3,200 tonnes of CO2 emissions are avoided by donating the food instead of processing it as waste.
Speaking about the initiatives, Tesco’s corporate affairs director Christine Heffernan says that even the most efficient retail operations result in surplus food.
“We are thrilled to make a valuable contribution to local communities, enabling charities to focus on the services they themselves provide,” Heffernan said. “We encourage any charity that can benefit from this partnership to register via the website food.cloud.”