Diabetes UK has raised £10m via its national partnership with Tesco, which will now continue into the future.

The charity announced the fundraising total today, which hits the target set at the beginning of the partnership last year. The two organisations are now mapping out what their future relationship will entail, but it is likely to continue to involve working together on healthy choices in the supermarket, Tesco colleagues engagement and – the charity said – hopefully fundraising.

The £10m is a significant boost for Diabetes UK, which has an income of £25.6m.

By April 2013, the supermarket giant announced it had raised £11.85m for Cancer Research UK in 2012 – however this included activities such as Race for Life. In 2011 it raised £7.5m for Alzheimer’s Society and Alzheimer’s Scotland, and in 2010 Clic Sargent raised £7.2m from the partnership.

The partnership was sometimes controversial, with critics in the media and social networks highlighting Tesco’s promotion of unhealthy, sugary foods as being at contrary to the healthy eating required to avoid type 2 diabetes.

Diabetes UK director of fundraising Paul Amadi told civilsociety.co.uk that the charity was, internally, “braced for debate and discussion” about the partnership before it began, but that it did not generate a significant number of complaints or criticism as had been imagined.

“When you reconcile that with what we were able to do,” he said, “for us it has been a great partnership.”

The partnership was a multifaceted one, and included a flagship £2m awareness campaign about type 2 diabetes which launched in September. Amadi said that this campaign had reached 80 per cent of the 7 million Britons considered ‘at risk’ of developing type 2 diabetes and that as a direct result 70,000 people had taken the charity’s risk score test.

Tesco staff and customers were behind the majority of the £10m fundraising total, with the retailer also raising funds for the charity through cause related marketing. Suppliers also came on board with promotions and a charity collection weekend, staffed by 7,500 volunteers, raised £380,000.

The most generous store was Tesco Extra in Dundee, which raised more than £19,500.