Asda stores donate one million meals from surplus food to help people in need

Our stores across the country have donated one million meals to local charities and community organisations thanks to our partnership with FareShare Go.

We've been working with food redistribution charity FareShare as part of the Asdas Fight Hunger Create Change programme, donating surplus food from 341 stores to nearby charities and community groups.

Groups which have signed up to FareShare Go receive quality, in-date produce, often including bread, bakery items, fruit, vegetables and eggs, which can no longer be sold in stores due to damaged packaging or shorter sell-by dates.

With help from Asda colleagues and the FareShare Go app, charities and community groups can receive up to five collections a week from Asda supermarkets, superstores and supercentres across the country.

One of the groups helped by the initiative is Community Spirit Wirral, which regularly collects surplus food through Asda Liscard. The group's founder Mandy-Lee Upton said: “We’re completely self-funded at Community Spirit so the food we receive through Asda is a God send. I’m really thankful to Asda and FareShare – the staff at Asda Liscard have been absolutely brilliant, they’ve always been really good with us.

"We’re so blessed to be working with them and it’s great to not have to do it on our own – we’re completely reliant on the food we get and we literally couldn’t run without them."

Stephi Brett-Lee, Asda’s senior director of community, said: “This is a really significant milestone – one million meals to those in need that wouldn’t otherwise have been provided – and shows how important our partnership with FareShare Go is to help those in need.

"We’re really proud of our Fight Hunger Create Change programme and we know our customers and colleagues are really passionate about us tackling food insecurity. This scheme is helping us to do that right in the heart of our local communities."

Lindsay Boswell, chief executive at FareShare, said: "This is a huge achievement for Asda stores across The UK– since launching, we’ve been able to redistribute more than 420,000kg of food to frontline charities and community groups across the country.

"We’ve been overwhelmed by the fantastic response from colleagues in Asda stores who are helping to provide thousands of vulnerable people with much-needed food that they otherwise wouldn’t have access to."

Alongside the FareShare Go scheme, which is rolling out across the UK over the next year, Asda is also donating £20 million across three years to FareShare and the Trussell Trust, a network of food banks, to create long-term positive change to poverty in the UK.

The donation has already helped expand FareShare’s capacity and food distribution network to provide more food for more people in need. It has also allowed the Trussell Trust to start receiving donations of fresh produce and has started to fund additional services, such as debt and benefit advisors, for recipients of its emergency food parcels.