Local charities and groups across Kerry have received almost 80,000 meals to date from Tesco Ireland through their surplus food donations programme run in partnership with Irish social enterprise, FoodCloud. A wide range of Kerry based organisations including ADAPT Kerry Women’s Refuge & Support Services, Tralee Soup Kitchen, and Killorglin Family Resource Centre Ltd have benefited from the redistribution of over 40,000 kgs (or 89,000 meals) of surplus food from Tesco stores across Kerry since 2014. Nationally, Tesco’s innovative surplus food donations programme has redistributed over two million meals to 195 charities since its launch in July 2014. This equates to over 20,000 meals distributed to charities and groups every week. At present 109 of Tesco’s 148 Irish stores (73%) support local good causes with surplus food donations, with the retailer planning to introduce their programme into all of its Irish stores by the end of 2016. With 2 million meals redistributed to date, equating to 1000 tonnes of food, Tesco is encouraging more charities across Ireland to sign up and take part in this initiative.
Speaking about the initiative, Niobe Barry, Area Community Champion for Tesco in Kerry said: “My day to day role involves working with the charities and FoodCloud to ensure our partners are receiving food which works for them. I have seen the impact that this initiative has on these organisations and I am delighted to play a role. I would encourage any charity to get involved in FoodCloud”.
