Tesco partners with food donations charities in weekend food collection
Howard Lake | 3 July 2014 | News
Tesco is hosting a nationwide food collection from 3 to 5 July with foodbank charity the Trussell Trust and food redistribution charity FareShare. The food retailer is hoping that customers and colleagues will collect five million meals for people in need.
This is Tesco’s fourth Neighbourhood Food Collection since December 2012. They have collected 10 million meals for people in need around the UK. The last collection in December 2013 achieved 4.3 million donated meals.
As in previous collections, Tesco will be topping up total donations by a further 30%.
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Why Summer?
This weekend has been chosen because Tesco research found that “people are usually less generous in the Summer months than at other times of the year”. Only 7% of people surveyed said that they were at their most charitable during the Summer. Yet many low-income families find the Summer particularly hard as children no longer benefit from free school meals.
In July and August 2013 Trussell Trust foodbanks alone gave emergency food to 133,539 people, including 47,639 children. The charity expects demand to be higher this Summer.
Multi-charity partnership
Thousands of volunteers from the Trussell Trust and the FareShare network will be involved over the weekend campaign, as will hundreds of volunteers from the British Red Cross. FareShare will distribute some of the donated food to some of the other 1,290 charities that it supports.
Lindsay Boswell, CEO of FareShare said:
“As the research shows, people are more generous at Christmas when it’s easier to remember those in need. However, we are urging people to give generously once more and not forget that the summer is also a difficult time for many as they struggle to provide for their families during the long break”.
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Research was carried out by Censuswide using a sample of 4,000 adults across the UK, 2,000 of whom were parents with children under the age of 16.
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About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale.
He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.