Charities and community groups in East Renfrewshire are being invited to sign up to receive surplus food from their local Tesco store.

The supermarket distributes hundreds of thousands of meals to good causes across the UK every week as part of its Community Food Connection scheme, which is run in conjunction with food redistribution charity FareShare.

Recipients include older people’s lunch clubs, school breakfast clubs and charities working with vulnerable and homeless people.

But more food is available – and Tesco is reaching out to groups in East Renfrewshire to encourage them to get involved.

“Community Food Connection is making a real difference in communities but we know there are more groups that could receive food from the scheme,” said Tesco spokesman Tony McElroy.

“I’d encourage any group looking to use food in their work to discover how they could benefit.”

The surplus food available includes fresh produce such as fruit and bakery products, as well as chilled food like meat and cheese.

Groups registered with the scheme are given scheduled collection days and receive a text alert to tell them what food is available.

For details, visit www.fareshare.org.uk/fareshare-go.