Generous Tesco customers across the Isle of Wight donated more than 1,500 meals to this year’s Tesco Winter Food Collection – providing much-needed support for FareShare and the Trussell Trust. Those shopping in Tesco stores across the Island donated enough goods for some 1,725 meals, making a real difference in the local community. That is a whopping 724kg of food! Donations to the Trussell Trust help food banks provide emergency food parcels to people who cannot afford the essentials, while donations to FareShare support thousands of frontline local charities. This year will see both charities face their busiest winter yet as more people turn to them for support. The Trussell Trust is expecting to distribute 1 food parcel every 8 seconds over the next 3 months and the charity has reported that 320,000 people needed to access a food bank for the first time between April and September – the most ever for this period. Meanwhile, FareShare has over 1,500 frontline charities on its waiting list seeking food to help them provide meals for people facing hunger this winter. Ken Murphy, Tesco CEO, has said:
“The generosity of our customers is truly amazing. At a time when people are facing financial strain, they still went out of their way to support our charity partners. “From a single carton of long-life milk to a whole trolley of items, every customer who donated helped us to make this one of the most successful Winter Food Collections ever.”
In addition to the donations of food, the pre-Christmas Winter Food Collection saw Isle of Wight customers help towards donating more than £300,000 to the charities by rounding up their bills at the till and donating through a link from Tesco’s online groceries website.
