To donate non Tesco food to the foodbank

[sofasearcher]

I held a MacMillan cake sale today and lots of people brought boxed cakes from different shops. We had several left over, still in unopened boxes. Most of them are not sold by Tesco.

AIBU to drop them to Tesco foodbank or will they chuck food that isn't theirs? All packets are sealed and within date.

Of course they won't! Tesco won't care at all which foods paid for by other people that they give away for free go in the box.

I’ve often thought this because we shop at Aldi and would be happy to pop some of their stuff into another donation point.

It's absolutely fine to donate any food. Our local Tesco have a donations box, but they don't have anything to do with collecting it/sending it on to the food bank, the food is collected directly by the food bank.

Tesco won't care, but foodbanks often only take things with long shelf life, so even if it's unopened they might be no good.

Yes I did it. Had driven around with a pack of Lidl nappies in the wrong size for ages. When I popped into Tesco I put them in the donations trolley. Would be arrogant to turn down donations

I think tesco do it differently to other shops to do check, my understanding is that they get everything out of the food bank box, scan it and donate the value of the food (they top it up too I think) rather than other shops who just donate what they get. I drop anything and everything into the food bank box in sainsburys

Ours wouldn't take fresh foods.

My local food bank would take them! When I went in and told them I wouldn't be having to use them again because I'd got some p/t work, they gave me a huge fancy M&S cake for me and my kids to celebrate - best cake ever after weeks of tinned spaghetti hoops and corned beef!

I do this - I shop at Lidl and Waitrose for my family, but will buy stuff at the former and drop off at the latter so my donation money goes further.

They really don't care. I put free nappies and wipes from magazines in there too, or I used to, until I realised that the magazines weren't relevant to me anymore.

Consensus seems to be that it's ok then. Thank you.

I'm involved in running a Trussell Trust foodbank - usually the ones associated with Tesco.

We dont care where the food comes from in terms of the label and Tesco dont check either.

Do check on your foodbank website though to see what they can accept. Find your local trussell here:

www.trusselltrust.org/get-help/find-a-foodbank/

Most foodbanks can only store 'ambiant' food - tins, packets, long shelf life stuff. Some of the bigger ones do have a fresh food storage facility. Unfortunately anything that cannot be stored is wasted. Those food bins will likely not be emptied every day - and most foodbanks run 2-3 days per week. Looking at the kind of cakes I think you have - so long as they have a week or more on the date
you should be ok.

Usual foodbank parcel list is for anyone interested:

Cereal
Soup
Pasta
Rice
Tinned tomatoes/ pasta sauce
Lentils, beans and pulses
Tinned meat
Tinned vegetables
Tea/coffee
Tinned fruit
Biscuits
UHT milk
Fruit juice

@LittleOwl153 That is so helpful, thank you. I have stripped out a couple which expire tomorrow and the others all have dates around 6 October so should be fine. Thanks for your input.