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Tesco has donated more than 36 million meals worth of food since starting its surplus food redistribution scheme.

Britain’s largest retailer ran special events over the weekend in 300 Tesco stores, to celebrate the four-year milestone since its inception in June 2015.

Tesco redistributes the food in partnership with FareShare, which collects and delivers the goods, operating in nearly 2000 towns and cities across the UK.

Shrewsbury Extra is one Tesco that has donated more than 100,000 meals since the beginning of the scheme, with local groups such as the Riversway Elim Church receiving the surplus goods.

Sue Briggs, from Riversway Elim Church, said: 'Before Tesco invited us to come in we had to purchase all the food ourselves. The things we could do before were very limited but today we can offer more choice to help people and families.

'You can make friends when you share a bowl of soup and eat together, and it is just something really positive to help people in the community. We are genuinely thankful for what Tesco have done for us, because they have made a difference here.'

Tesco’s head of community Alec Brown said: 'Community Food Connection helps us to tackle food waste in our business and support thousands of amazing local charities like Riversway Elim Church, doing great work in their communities.

'We know that the scheme has made a real difference over the past four years and we look forward to providing millions more meals from Tesco stores in the years ahead.'

FareShare chief executive Lindsay Boswell said the success of the scheme showed what could be achieved in tackling the issue of food waste: 'Around a third of all the food that is grown in the world goes to waste, so we are proud of our partnership with Tesco, which has allowed us to divert thousands of tonnes of food to feed people rather than going to waste.

'At FareShare, we work closely with some 7,000 groups that now receive surplus food from Tesco, and our community coordinators see week-in week-out the difference that the surplus food is making in settings such as community centres, pensioners’ lunch clubs, groups helping the homeless and children’s breakfast clubs.'