OXFORD Food Bank has found it saves more than £1m of surplus food a year from landfill thanks to volunteers.

The group from Unipart Logistics in Cowley have been working at the food bank’s Botley site to weigh how much surplus food from local wholesalers and supermarkets is being redistributed free of charge to more than 100 charities in Oxfordshire.

ALSO READ: Cafe offers 50p meals to help families beat hunger

Over seven days Oxford Food Bank received 7.4 tonnes of surplus food with a retail value of nearly £20,000.

Cathy Howard, manager of Oxford Food Bank, said: "This is hard evidence for the incredible achievements of our volunteers, who work tirelessly seven days a week to keep quality, unsold fresh food out of landfill”.

Operations coordinator Marcelo Pollack added: “We’re such a busy charity, day in day out, that we would never have found the time to do this ourselves."