A SUPERMARKET giant with two big stores in York has donated an extra £15 million to food banks, charities and community groups across Yorkshire to support people amid the Covid-19 crisis.

Tesco, which has supermarkets at Clifton Moor and Askham Bar as well as numerous smaller city stores is donating the food to support its partner charities the Trussell Trust and FareShare to respond to the extra demands to provide emergency food supplies caused by the pandemic.

Already 122 trucks full of Tesco food donations have been delivered to the two charities, with more than 62 tonnes of food being delivered to the FareShare regional centre in Yorkshire to support 231 charities with 148,098 meals-worth of food, and enough long-life food to provide almost 1,000 meals for people in crisis being supplied to local Trussell Trust food banks each week.

The extra deliveries are on top of the £3 million surplus food that Tesco already distributes to some 7,000 charities and community groups across the UK each month due to its ongoing partnership with FareShare.

Gareth Batty, Chief Executive for FareShare in Yorkshire, said the additional donations from Tesco were making a huge difference to charities and community groups which receive supplies from them.

Gareth said: “We are immensely thankful to Tesco for their continued support during the coronavirus pandemic.

"Many of the frontline charities we work with continue to provide essential support within their communities, and the additional donations from Tesco will help us to keep up a steady supply of food to them during this difficult time.”

Laura Chalmers, is the Trussell Trust’s area manager for Yorkshire and Lancashire. She said the donations were helping to support people unable to afford their own food.