Tesco announces £30million package of support for local communities

Tesco will provide an additional food donation worth £15million over the next 12 weeks

Tesco has today announced its COVID-19 Community Fund, a £30million package of support to help local communities tackling the Coronavirus outbreak, with £500 grants available for groups in the borough of Rochdale.

• Tesco, which currently donates £3million of food every month through its Community Food Connection scheme and distribution centres, will, over the next 12 weeks, provide an additional top up food donation of £15million of food (ambient and fresh) to FareShare and the Trussell Trust – food they need for distribution to community groups and food banks. It will also donate £1million between the two organisations to support their continuing operations.
   
• The retailer will also focus £2million of funding from its existing Bags of Help community donation scheme to charities that are helping the most vulnerable.
   
• In addition, Tesco will build on its existing partnership with the British Red Cross, seeing it donate £2million to help the group with the extra costs they face in supporting people in need.
   
• Tesco's stores will open up access to more than £1million of funding to support causes in their local area.

Tesco Group CEO, Dave Lewis, said: “Our stores are at the heart of the communities we serve and as well as supporting our customers and colleagues, we want to help those who need it most, locally. We will significantly boost our food donations programme, to ensure food banks and community groups have the supplies they need; whilst giving extra resources to the British Red Cross and focus our Bags of Help scheme to deliver more community support where its most needed at this difficult time.”

Tesco's Bags of Help COVID-19 Community Fund will support groups across the country with grants of £500. This includes, but is not limited to, women’s refuges, foodbanks, hospices, homeless charities, social isolation groups, schools, charities supporting the elderly and local authorities. The application and payment process is simple to provide support quickly to these important causes.

The process is managed through Tesco's partner charity Groundwork’s website. Any groups that would benefit from this funding are encouraged to apply here: 

• www.tescobagsofhelp.org.uk

Lindsay Boswell, chief executive of FareShare, said: “As the coronavirus crisis continues, we are very thankful to our longstanding partner, Tesco for their generous support. We know that many of the frontline charities we work with are continuing to provide vital support in their communities, and so the combination of funding and unprecedented food donations from Tesco will allow us to ensure they have a consistent supply of food during this difficult time.”

Emma Revie, chief executive of the Trussell Trust, said: “We believe everyone should be able to afford their own food. That’s why we are so grateful to Tesco who will, as the pandemic develops, provide support to communities across the UK where we’re working closely with food banks, helping people who can’t afford essentials to get an emergency food parcel.”