British supermarket Morrisons will extend its support for FoodCycle – a charity that uses food waste to create meals for those in risk of falling into food poverty – by donating excess food from its stores to three of the organisation’s UK projects.

The schemes in Cambridgeshire, Birmingham and County Durham will receive donated spare food from local Morrisons stores, which will be used to cook healthy, three-course meals for people living in poverty and isolation.

Over the past seven years, FoodCycle has reclaimed over 178,000kg of food that would have gone to waste and cooked 150,000 meals for vulnerable people, the charity claimed. Its partnership with Morrisons dates back to 2013, and the retailer already supports five of its projects across the UK.

Steve Butts, head of corporate responsibility for Morrisons, said: “FoodCycle is one of leading community partners for our food redistribution programme which aims to find a good home for unsold food. Across the Morrisons national programme in the last three months our stores donated over 825,000 products to 400 community groups.”

FoodCycle chief executive Mary McGrath added: “with hunger, loneliness and isolation a huge problem for many people in our towns and cities, we’re so happy that Morrisons will be supporting us with more food to feed more hungry people. A huge thank you to Morrisons and all its staff for supporting FoodCycle in our work.”