Christmas and New Year good tidings and gratitude go to everyone who made it possible for Heswall's Tesco to give away 4,157 meals to people in need during these tough pandemic times.

Across the country, the Tesco Food Collection gathered together enough foodstuffs to provide more than one million meals. These were distributed by the Trussell Trust and FareShare charities.

Holding the Tesco Food Collections, which ran for three days in large stores, is just one of a number of ways in which Tesco supports the two food charities.

The supermarket has provided more than £60m in support to help the charities feed communities during the pandemic.

This year's Collection campaign took place between November the 19th and 21st and customers on our patch responded with great kindness and made a real difference.

Tesco Heswall also partnered with students at Wirral Metropolitan College, providing food which student chefs could use to learn about mass catering while supplying free meals to local people who needed them this Christmas.

Recently, the supermarket chain announced a further £4 million of food for FareShare, and gives away two million meals of surplus food a month via the charity.

This winter, it's predicted that food banks in the Trussell Trust's network will give away a food parcel every nine seconds, while, compared to before the pandemic, FareShare is providing more than double the food it did to 11,000 charities and community groups supporting people across the UK.

Anne Dobie, development manager at FareShare Merseyside, said: "This year has been so difficult for so many people and FareShare has seen demand for our food skyrocket.

"We continue to provide over two million meals per week to vulnerable communities across the UK, and 90% of the organisations we work with expect demand to remain the same as at peak crisis levels, or even increase through the winter.

"We are immensely grateful to every single person that donated food during this year's Tesco Food Collection."

Trussell Trust's Chief Executive, Emma Revie, said: "Throughout 2020, communities across the UK have stepped in to provide vital support to people left without enough money for the basics.

"And we have been truly humbled to see how much people are willing to give to food banks in our network as they face their busiest winter ever."

Shoppers who couldn't donate in store during the Tesco Food Collection can still give the two charities and the people they serve a helping hand. To find out more, please click or tap here.