Charities and community groups in Wandsworth are being encouraged 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 currently receive food from Tesco through the award-winning scheme, with recipients including older people’s lunch clubs, school breakfast clubs and charities who work with vulnerable and homeless people.

But a lot more is available, and Tesco is encouraging groups in Wandsworth to find out how they could receive excess food from the supermarket.

Alec Brown, Tesco’s Head of Community 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 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 text alerts about 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, visit www.fareshare.org.uk/fareshare-go to find out more.