Tesco in Stratford hosting donation drive for town’s foodbank

A DRIVE to restock the shelves of Stratford Foodbank is taking place this Saturday (27th May) with the charity calling on shoppers at Tesco to make a donation or two.

The Tesco Food Collection is taking place at the supermarket’s Birmingham Road store where there will be a donation basket by the exit.

Customers being asked to donate items of long-life food such as UHT fruit juice, tinned fish, pasta sauce, tinned sweetcorn and tinned meat meals.

The foodbank said this support is needed more than ever as families are facing the biggest income squeeze in a generation and many people on low incomes are struggling to put food on the table.

Sarah Mills, operations lead of Stratford Foodbank, said: “No one in Stratford and the surrounding area should be facing hunger and we want to see an end to local people needing emergency food at all. While we work alongside other foodbanks in the Trussell Trust network to bring about long-term change to ensure everyone has enough money for the essentials, any donations of our most-needed items will be invaluable.”

She added: “Thanks to Tesco and the generosity of its customers, we hope to continue to offer vital support to families and children over the coming months, which will know will be particularly tough for many people in the local area.”

Any donations made on Saturday will be topped up by Tesco with a financial donation of 20 per cent of the value of the items donated.

Almost 4,300 emergency food parcels were provided by Stratford Foodbank between April 2022 and March 2023.