Isle of Wight Tesco shoppers have been their most generous ever in support of foodbanks and local charities, helping to make it a record-breaking year.
The total amount of food donated by Tesco shoppers to the Trussell Trust and FareShare during 2022 was equivalent of 12.5 million meals – 27,056 of which came from the Isle of Wight.
The donations to the Trussell Trust help food banks to provide emergency food parcels to people in crisis, while donations to FareShare support frontline community charities.
Tesco has also topped up all customer donations during the collection by 20% in cash, to support the two charities with their operating costs and ensure the food can get to where it is most needed.
Tesco customers donated more than 2.4 million meals during the winter Food Collection at the beginning of December, with 3,253 of those meals coming from shoppers on the Isle of Wight.
In addition to the donations of food, the pre-Christmas Tesco Food Collection saw customers donate more than £382,000 to the charities by rounding up their bills at the till.
Tesco also donates its unsold food to FareShare and, including those donations, more than 39 million meals have been provided by Tesco and its customers in the past year.
Lindsay Boswell CBE, Chief Executive at FareShare, said:
“We want to say an enormous thank you to Tesco, and every single person that volunteered and donated across the year and at the Winter Food Collection — we had more than 2,000 amazing volunteers join us in stores this year.
"The support we have seen from people at the collections and throughout 2022, in both time and donations, will help FareShare to continue getting much needed food to the people that need it most this winter.”
With both charities continuing to need support, Tesco shoppers can continue to make donations at permanent collection points at every Tesco store in the UK.