PEOPLE in Newport donated more than 7,000 meals to the community this year.

Tesco shoppers in South Wales have donated 56,097 meals, with 7,044 of those coming in Newport, and more than 3,000 at Tesco's Ebbw Vale store.

During the annual Tesco Food Collection at the end of November shoppers donated enough packets, tins and boxes to provide 800,000 meals to help the Trussell Trust and FareShare in their vital work.

An additional Tesco Food Collection held in the summer means that shoppers have donated more than 1.3 million meals through Tesco Food Collections this year.

Tesco tops up all customer donations to the collection by 20 per cent.

Holding the Tesco Food Collections, which ran for three days in large stores, is one of a number of ways in which Tesco supports the two food charities.

The supermarket has provided more than £60 million in support to help the charities feed communities during the pandemic.

Sarah Germain, project manager for FareShare in South Wales, said: “This year has been so difficult for so many people and FareShare has seen demand for our food skyrocket.

"We continue to provide over two million meals per week to vulnerable communities across the UK, and 90 per cent of the organisations we work with expect demand to remain the same as at peak crisis levels, or even increase through the winter.

“We are immensely grateful to every single person that donated food during this year’s Tesco Food Collection.”

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Trussell Trust chief executive Emma Revie said: “Throughout 2020, communities across the UK have stepped in to provide vital support to people left without enough money for the basics.

"And we have been truly humbled to see how much people are willing to give to food banks in our network as they face their busiest winter ever.

“It’s not right that any of us are forced to a charity for food but thanks to the incredible compassion and generosity of Tesco customers during the Tesco Food Collection, food banks in our network are able to continue to provide the lifeline of emergency support for local people in crisis this winter, while we work in the long term to build a hunger free future.”

Tesco’s head of community Claire De Silva thanked all those who had supported the annual collection in what had been a particularly challenging year.

She said: “With most of the UK in lockdown holding the collection was always going to be a challenge, but once again we have been amazed by the generosity of our customers, and the fact that we have now collected more than a million meals is amazing.

"We know that every single can, jar or packet donated is helping someone who needs support this winter.

"We are immensely proud of the vital support our customers and colleagues have been able to give to the two charities in these very challenging times”