UNSOLD food at Tesco Extra has been used to provide thousands of meals to people in need across Warrington.

A total of 12,267 meals have been served from surplus food at the supermarket chain's shops in the town, with the majority coming from the Winwick Road store.

The efforts form part of Community Food Connection – the company's food surplus redistribution initiative.

Ten million meals have been dished up nationally, helping more than 5,000 charities and community groups.

The work is a key part of Tesco's target to ensure 'no food safe for human consumption' goes to waste by the end of this year.

Charities benefitting from the scheme include homeless hostels, breakfast clubs for disadvantaged children, domestic violence refuges and lunch clubs for older people.

Warrington Visually Impaired Centre and St Joseph's Family Centre are among those to benefit in the borough.

Launched in February 2016, the scheme, which is run in partnership with food redistribution charity FareShare, enables Tesco stores to donate unsold food through an app developed by Irish social enterprise FoodCloud.

The app lets charities know if there is surplus food available at the end of each day.

Groups can then collect and use the food to provide nutritious meals to vulnerable people.

Mark Thomas, regional communications manager at Tesco, said: "It's great to see the difference Community Food Connection is making by providing people in need with meals from food that would otherwise go to waste.

"We know that it frees up time and resources so that the charities using it can focus on offering other services.

"Our colleagues are playing an important role, too.

"Together with FareShare, they're helping to make sure charities across the UK have access to surplus food from our stores."

FareShare chief executive Lindsay Boswell added: "Reaching 10 million meals through our network of 5,000 charities and community groups is a phenomenal achievement.

"There's no reason for good quality, in-date food from stores to be thrown away when it could go to a charity who needs it.

"A big thank you to Tesco for their commitment to tackling food waste."