Tesco is inviting charities to sign up to a new mobile app, FareShare FoodCloud, which enables store managers to alert local bodies when they have surplus food to distribute.

The retailer already has a partnership with FareShare to redistribute food and has now included the Irish social enterprise FoodCloud to the partnership to use its technology. The scheme is being piloted in ten Tesco stores in the UK.

FoodCloud developed the technology and implemented the scheme with Tesco in Ireland and FareShare will provide access to a network of frontline organisations.

Charities that have signed up receive alerts about surplus food at a local Tescso store. They can then confirm they want the food and pick it up free of charge. Tesco anticipates that beneficiaries will include homeless hostels, women’s refuges and breakfast clubs for disadvantaged children.

Recent figures show that 55,400 tonnes of food was thrown away by Tesco stores and distribution centres over the past year but that 30,000 tonnes of it could have been eaten.

FoodCloud estimates suggest this is equivalent to almost 70 million meals which charities could potentially distribute.

Lindsay Boswell, chief executive of FareShare, said: “FareShare already has a long standing partnership with Tesco and the development of the FareShare FoodCloud is a natural evolution of this.

“We understand that customers get angry when they see food being wasted in their local store. We do too and that is why we have spent 20 years developing our successful charity redistribution model.

In the last twelve months FoodCloud has signed up 100 stores in Ireland and redistributed 431 tonnes of food, which it says is the equivalent of one million meals, to charities and community groups.

Iseult Ward, co-founder of FoodCloud, said: “Our work in Ireland means that over 300 charities have already benefited from using the platform. It has helped us create a robust model that we have translated for the UK market.

“We are delighted to be working in partnership with both FareShare and Tesco so that we can bring our solution in to the UK to ensure that more charities can benefit. We are looking forward to the developments that will come about as a result of this trial.”

Dave Lewis, chief executive of Tesco, said: “This is potentially the biggest single step we’ve taken to cut food waste, and we hope it marks the start of eliminating the need to throw away edible food in our stores.”

Charities and community groups can register their interest online. The scheme is being trialled in a London, Belfast, Glasgow and Liverpool.