Tesco Ireland has announced the donation of 40 Grocery Home Service Vans to charitable groups across the country as part of its No Time for Waste campaign, which aims to minimise food waste and increase food donations nationwide.
Since launching its nationwide surplus food donations programme in 2014 with FoodCloud, Tesco has redistributed almost 4.5 million meals to over 275 community groups across the country.
These donations have helped the charitable sector to save over €6 million in food bills to date, as estimated by FoodCloud, empowering them to invest in additional support services across the country.
Key Issues
Working with its surplus food donations partners and FoodCloud, Tesco Ireland has identified two key issues for the charitable food sector in Ireland and has plans in place to support causes to address them.
It says that local causes often lack sufficient refrigerated storage facilities for food. Therefore, Tesco Ireland recently committed to providing free fridges and freezers to them through its Community Chill initiative.
To date, Tesco has received applications received for over 340 individual storage units, which are expected to be delivered to the successful community groups in January 2018.
It also says that many causes lack transport options, and so to support its partner causes with this challenge, Tesco Ireland will donate 40 vans to charitable groups across Ireland over the coming months, including Dublin Simon Community, DaisyHouse, Linx Ballymun and many more.
The first round of these donations is the donation of seven vans to FoodCloud. These vans will be used as part of FoodCloud’s Food Rescue Project, which redistributes surplus food from Tesco stores to community groups that do not have access to transport in Dublin and Cork.
Geoff Byrne, Chief Operating Officer, Tesco Ireland, commented, “The donation of 40 vans is an evolution of our commitment to reducing food waste and ensuring those in need in our local communities receive nutritious food.
“Our surplus food donations programme has grown from strength to strength, from a one store trial back in 2013 to donating almost 4.5 million meals with all of stores donating surplus food to their local communities with the support of FoodCloud. This donation of vans will help us redistribute even more food to people in need.”
Aoibheann O’Brien, CEO of FoodCloud Hubs, added,“We are delighted to receive these 7 vans from Tesco. These vans are going to make a fantastic difference for the community groups we work with who struggle to collect food due to transport issues.
“This will mean that we can increase the food that these community groups receive and in turn enable them to have a reliable source of surplus food donations. ”
© 2017 - Checkout Magazine by Jenny Whelan
