Community Chill at Tesco

Things are about to get a whole lot chiller at Tesco, as the supermarket has recently launched the Community Chill campaign, which provides funding for charities and good causes to buy fridges and freezers so they can receive more surplus food donations to help people in need.

Community Chill aims to overcome one of the obstacles that stops local good causes taking in more surplus food, namely their lack of storage facilities. Since becoming the first retailer to launch a nationwide food surplus programme in 2014, Tesco has donated over four million meals of surplus food to more than 260 community groups across Ireland.

The groups already realising the benefits of Tesco’s surplus food donations include family resource centres, soup kitchens, youth services, homeless organisations, meals on wheels and more. These donations have enabled the charitable sector to save over €5.8m on its food bills to date, as reported by FoodCloud, empowering it to invest in additional support services across the country.

Charitable groups can apply on www.tesco.ie/notimeforwaste to receive a brand new fridge or freezer from a selection of refrigeration equipment that best suits their needs. This initiative is part of Tesco’s “No Time for Waste” strategy.

Savings on student health insurance

Recent figures have shown that families throughout the country are paying excessive premiums for their young adult or student dependents, following research findings. Young adults could be entitled to discounts of up to 50% on their premiums, but only if they are on the most up-to-date plan, according to Dermot Goode, health cover analysis with TotalHealthCare.ie.

“Under current legislation, insurers are allowed to charge a reduced rate for young adults aged 18-20 and then a tiered discounted rate for those young adults aged 21-25. For example, a 21-year-old may get a discounted rate of nearly 50%, whereas the discount for a 23-year-old will be in the region of 30%,” said Mr Goode. “The good news is that this applies to all young adults in these age categories, irrespective of whether they are still in third level education or in full-time employment. The bad news is that the insurers are not obliged to include this on all plans and, as a result, many consumers are totally unaware of the savings to be made.”

TotalHealthCover.ie was able to illustrate savings by looking at sample cases with providers in the Irish market, including Laya Healthcare, Irish Life Health, VHI Healthcare and Irish Life Health.