Tesco Ireland Community Chill Campaign
Tesco Ireland recently announced the launch of the Community Chill campaign, which provides funding for food related good causes to buy fridges and freezers so they can receive more surplus food donations to help people in need. The Community Chill aims to overcome one of the obstacles to local good causes taking more surplus food, which is their lack of storage facilities. Since becoming the first retailer to launch a nationwide surplus food donations programme in 2014, Tesco stores have donated over 4 million meals of surplus food to more than 260 community groups across Ireland.
Charitable groups can apply to receive a brand new fridge or freezer from a selection of refrigeration equipment that best suits their needs. The initiative is part of Tesco’s No Time for Waste strategy which aims to minimise food waste and increase surplus food donations at Tesco stores nationwide.
Tesco donates on average the equivalent of over 40,000 meals per week. The 260 local groups already realising the benefits of Tesco’s surplus food donations include family resource centres, soup kitchens, youth services, homeless organisations, meals on wheels and more. These donations have enabled the charitable sector to save over €5.8 million off their food bills to date, as reported by FoodCloud, empowering them to invest in additional support services across the country.
Tesco also announced a commitment that no surplus food that’s suitable for human consumption will go to waste in its stores by 2020. Tesco became the first retailer in Ireland to publish its food waste data which provides the insight to help the company meet this target and support their food waste reduction agenda.
Tesco Ireland is proud to be the first retail partner of FoodCloud since 2013 and continues to work closely with them to deliver its surplus food donations programme.
Community groups interested in applying for the Community Chill should visit www.tesco.ie/notimeforwaste for more information.
Image Caption above:
The Community Chill: Tesco launches ‘The Community Chill’ campaign, to provide fridges and freezers for food related good causes so that they can receive more surplus food donations to help people in need. ‘The Community Chill’ aims to overcome one of the obstacles to local good causes taking more surplus food, which is their lack of storage facilities. Since becoming the first retailer to launch a nationwide surplus food programme in 2014, Tesco has donated over 4 million meals of surplus food to more than 260 community groups across Ireland. Pictured at the launch of the campaign were:
- TV presenter Anna Daly
- Paula Cunningham, Linx Project
- Christine Heffernan, Corporate Affairs Director
