Tesco teams up with former Formula 1 boss on meals for frontline workers initiative

• Tesco will deliver food to catering group Absolute Taste, which will prepare the food at its kitchens in Bicester, Oxfordshire

• The initiative will offer Boost Packs for staff to eat at work and Home Packs, which will be delivered to NHS workers who are self-isolating 

• The Dennis family is donating £1m to seed-fund the initiative through its Dream Chasing Foundation

Tesco has teamed up with former McLaren Formula 1 boss Ron Dennis in an initiative to provide one million free meals to frontline NHS workers.

Businessman Dennis has founded SalutetheNHS.org to feed thousands of hospital staff involved in treating those affected by the pandemic.

The not-for-profit initiative will see Tesco provide meals over the next three months to ICU teams, anaesthetic workers and A&E staff, who are unable to leave their clinical areas during their 12-hour shifts.

Tesco will deliver food to Absolute Taste, one of the UK’s largest catering groups, which will prepare the food at its kitchens in Bicester, Oxfordshire, with logistic support provided by delivery service Yodel.

The help will include a series of ‘Boost Packs’ intended for critical frontline NHS staff to eat either during their shift or to take home at the end of a long day. There will also be Home Packs, which will be delivered to NHS staff who are infected and self-isolating at home.

“Ensuring families have access to the shopping essentials they need, safely, has been our priority over the last few weeks, and so we’re pleased to now be able to help,” said Tesco CEO Dave Lewis.

“On behalf of Tesco colleagues, we would like to sincerely thank NHS staff for all they are doing.”

The Dennis family is donating £1m to seed-fund the initiative through its Dream Chasing Foundation.

Dennis said: “This is a time when all of us, individuals and businesses alike, need to stand up and be counted in the effort to combat Covid-19.

“We’re all in this together. I am delighted to be leading this initiative to help ensure that vital NHS workers have nutritious meals while they work every hour in this fight. It means they have one less thing to worry about.”