A BARRHEAD supermarket has used surplus food to donate more than 36,000 meals to vulnerable people across East Renfrewshire in the past five years.

The donations have been made through Tesco’s community food connection scheme, which it operates with food redistribution charity FareShare.

Every Tesco store in the UK participates, with more than a million meals donated each month.

The total for the Barrhead outlet was revealed as the supermarket chain hit a milestone of 50 million meals being donated across the UK.

The scheme works by pairing charities and community groups with their local Tesco store.

At the end of each day, a store colleague works out which food is likely to be unsold and then uses an specially-developed app to tell a local charity or community group what food can be collected.

Lindsay Boswell, FareShare’s chief executive, said the meals donated by the Barrhead store have made “a real difference.

“The scheme is a real game-changer for organisations working with the vulnerable, allowing even more people to access good to eat food which would otherwise go to waste,” he added.