Tesco and FareShare are calling on charities and community groups in and around Tenby and Saundersfoot to register for an exciting scheme which sees surplus food become meals for people in need. This food is free and includes fresh produce, such as fruit, vegetables and bakery products. Chilled products like meat, cheese and ready meals are also offered.

Tesco’s Community Food Connection programme with FareShare FoodCloud recruits and supports charities and community groups, linking them to Tesco stores via an innovative app that allows store teams to alert them to surplus unsold food items available at the end of each day.

Tesco is now set to extend Community Food Connection to its convenience stores across Pembrokeshire, which will significantly extend the number of charities reached and the number of meals given to people in need. Groups that benefit include homeless shelters, substance abuse rehabilitation services, after-school clubs, foodbanks and domestic violence refuges.

The scheme forms part of Tesco’s commitment to help reduce food waste across the food chain, and through the Community Food Connection they have set the target that no food that’s safe to eat will go to waste from their UK retail operations by the end of 2017.

Richard Davies, store manager at Tesco Tenby Express, said: “We’re so proud to already support local charities and community groups through Community Food Connection from our larger stores in Pembrokeshire and to be able to extend that support to our convenience stores is fantastic.

“We are looking forward to forging more strong links with local charities and community groups in the area, and supporting their efforts to help more vulnerable people in our community.”

Since launching in February 2016, Tesco’s Community Food Connection has so far helped provide more than five million meals to over 3,300 community groups and charities. In Pembrokeshire, 41,363 meals have been donated and helped local charities.

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