THOUSANDS of meals have been provided to people in need this Christmas thanks to customer donations at Tesco stores in North Ayrshire.

A total of 6,900 meals were donated by generous customers at the stores in Kilbirnie and Saltcoats during a UK-wide initiative supporting FareShare and The Trussell Trust.

Shoppers were asked to donate long-life items as part of their usual shop with Tesco topping up the value of the customer donations by 20 per cent.

The 20 per cent top–up donation provided by Tesco helps the charities in their work by providing funding to run the foodbanks and distribute the food to those in need.

Lindsay Boswell, CEO at FareShare, said: “The food donated at the Tesco Food Collection will make a tremendous difference to the thousands of charities and community groups that FareShare supports. “These groups are doing amazing work with some of the most vulnerable people in our community.

Thanks to the generosity of Tesco shoppers over the festive season, we have enough long-life food to provide more than 900,000 meals [across the UK].

“We’d like to thank everyone who donated, as well as all the volunteers who made the store collections such a success.”

Samantha Stapley, Operations Manager at The Trussell Trust, added: “Our foodbank network has spent the last month making sure that people referred to them with no money for food don’t go hungry this Christmas. This work has been made possible thanks to the incredible generosity of Tesco customers, store colleagues and volunteers during the Food Collection. Thank you for your support - your generosity has stopped hunger this Christmas.”