Over 300 community projects in Carlow supported by donations

New research has found that Tesco Ireland plays a significant role in County Carlow supporting over 306 community projects while employing over 190 colleagues in its two stores in the county.

The independent research was carried out by Indecon International Economic Consultants and calculates Tesco’s purchases of Irish agrifood produce, employment in its distribution centre, stores, and online services, as well as its community supports such as donations through the Tesco Community Fund, and surplus food distribution through its partnership with Irish social enterprise FoodCloud.  

The analysis found that that the overall economic impact of Tesco’s expenditure in Ireland is €3.05bn, and that the company supports almost 45,000 jobs, directly and indirectly around Ireland.

Tesco buys €1.6bn of Irish food and drink annually, more than the value of Irish food and drink exported to any country in the European Union. This includes over €960m in exports to Tesco stores in Britain and Central Europe. 

Tesco works with over 50 Irish food and drink suppliers, which, in turn, support almost 13,000 farming families nationwide.

The Indecon analysis examined Tesco’s impact in County Carlow too and found that: 

• Tesco employs over 190 colleagues in its two stores, making it one of the county’s most significant employers.
• Since 2014 in County Carlow, the Community Fund has donated over €78,000  to 306 community projects, helping groups such as Carlow Mental Health Association, Carlow Community Games, Tullow Men’s Shed and Ballyconnell Community First Responders.

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Commenting, Natasha Adams, CEO Tesco Ireland said:

“We’re really proud of the positive impact that Tesco makes in communities nationwide, particularly given the challenges of the pandemic and the cost-of-living crisis in recent times. This positive impact is made possible by our colleagues, customers, community partners, suppliers and the wider agrifood sector, who are central to our business.

“We work really hard too with community organisations to support what matters most to our customers and colleagues , through programmes such as the Tesco Community Fund.  

“This allows anyone to nominate local good causes which we will then seek to support as every 12 weeks we make a donation of up to €2,000. To date, the Tesco Community Fund has donated over €6,000,000 million to more than 20,000 community projects nationwide – including schools, animal shelters, sports groups, elderly care centres, and health organisations.”

Tackling food waste is also a key priority for Tesco Ireland, and surplus food is donated at the end of each day in every county to families and charitable organisations in need in the communities in which it operates.

Since launching the national surplus food donations programme with FoodCloud, Tesco has provided the equivalent of over 15 million meals to those in need, saving the charitable sector an estimated value of €14 million and equal to approximately 16,500 tonnes of CO2-eq avoided.

In County Carlow,  meals donated by Tesco since 2014 has reached 333,000 supporting charitable organisations, and local community groups. This has been of particular importance since the COVID-19 pandemic and given the current cost of living pressures.

Tesco will continue to support communities through these different initiatives and help as much as possible into the future.