AS SUPERMARKETS work to find ways to cut down on the amount of leftover food binned by their stores, an Oxford charity is leading the way.

Aldi announced last week it would be donating all its surplus food to good causes on Christmas Eve and appealed for charities nationwide to sign up to be paired with a store to collect products such as fruit, vegetables, fresh meat, fish and bread after they close at 6pm.

Cathy Howard, operations manager for Oxford Food Bank, said it was something the charity had been organising independently with local stores for years and acted as a bridge between smaller organisations and many of the supermarket chains.

She said: “The problem is usually smaller charities simply don’t have the transportation or storage to take on surplus food. It’s logistics as much as anything.

“We’ve had arrangements with supermarkets to collect their leftover fresh food and dairy products since we started and now we regularly visit 15 supermarkets and four or five wholesalers."

Oxford Food Bank then distributes the food collected each week to more than 80 charities, including over Christmas.

She said: "Luckily we are able to fundraise enough to provide that service, though other areas of the country and county are not as fortunate."

Most of the large supermarket chains are working on similar piecemeal schemes to Aldi, with a Sainsbury's spokesman saying it had 2,000 food donation partnerships across the UK, which allowed the retailer to donate surplus food to local charities throughout the year, including Christmas Eve.

A spokesman for Lidl added: “Rather than just focusing on key seasonal trading periods, we have a year-round approach to tackling food waste and redistributing food surplus. For example, our food surplus redistribution programme called ‘Feed it Back’, connects all of our stores with good causes, helping to provide millions of meals for those in need throughout the year.This is managed through our partner Neighbourly, which connects our stores with local food banks and charities, including those in the Oxfordshire region.”

Marks and Spencers said it also worked with Neighbourly to donate food and had prevented 2,144 tonnes of leftovers from going to waste.

Not all supermarket chains are as far along locally, however, with Asda currently in the process of ensuring all its large stores are able to donate surplus stock to local charities by the end of next year and smaller stores by the end of 2020. This does not yet apply in Oxfordshire.

Waitrose, Tesco and Co-op were also contacted but did not respond about Oxfordshire Christmas food donation.