Tesco is getting ready to welcome customers to the opening of a new Express store in Covent Garden on Friday.
The Covent Garden Endell Street store will open its doors on 18 June, and in addition to providing 17 new jobs, the store team will also be working hard to support local food banks with the Tesco Community Grants scheme.
Chris Lee, the store’s manager, said that supporting the community’s residents will be hugely important to store colleagues in the coming years.
He added: “Although it has been a difficult time for many, we’re hugely excited to be opening our Covent Garden Endell Street Express store to help support the local community.
“The store opening will provide a real boost for the area, helping to employ and train local people.
“We are really looking forward to welcoming new talent and experience into our Tesco Team.
“We will of course also promote Tesco’s Community Grant scheme, with the aim of donating thousands of pounds for local causes, helping the community to flourish.”
Local groups are invited to apply for community funding through Tesco’s Community Grant Scheme, Tesco’s blue token voting scheme which sees three local projects voted on by customers in store every three months, with first place awarded £2,000, second place £1,000 and third place £500.
Since 2016, Tesco Community Grants have provided £6.1 million in funding to 2,672 projects across London including funding for the Rainbow Trust Children’s Charity to help provide specialist professional support for care staff supporting families in London with a seriously ill child.
Despite the gradual easing of restrictions in England, Chris Lee stressed that safety at the store is still of extreme important.
Chris Lee said: “As always, the safety of our customers and colleagues is our number one priority and we’ve ensured the right safety measures are put in place to ensure everyone is kept safe.
“We are doing this while still offering the community our best service and broad range of products such as fresh food and food to go – and we look forward to welcoming our first customers.”
One of the other Tesco initiatives that will benefit the Covent Garden community is the Community Food Connection Scheme, which is dedicated to ensuring that the most vulnerable within our communities are supplied with essentials even if they cannot leave home. Since its launch in 2015, the Tesco Community Food Connection Scheme has donated nearly 42,710 meals to local charities in Covent Garden and the surrounding area.
The Community Food Connection scheme is run in partnership with food redistribution charity FareShare. Each month more than a million meals of food are donated across the country.
