Aldi has teamed up with community giving platform Neighbourly to donate over 1.1 million meals over the festive period.

The discounter gave away a range of fresh and chilled foods from its stores after closing early on Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve, and donated £25,000 to Neighbourly’s GoGive Christmas campaign to further support local charities across the UK and Ireland.

The donations follow research from Neighbourly, which has worked with the supermarket chain since 2019, that found that 78% of the good causes it supports were more concerned about meeting demand over Christmas.

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Aldi UK national sustainability director Luke Emery said: “This Christmas we were proud to support so many incredible charities across the UK who provide essential support to those in need.

“The services provided by food banks are more important than ever over the festive period and we’re committed to ensuring those that rely on them have access to a wide range of high-quality foods.”

Neighbourly CEO Steve Butterworth added: “We’re so grateful to have had Aldi’s support for another year. Christmas is one of the busiest periods for our charities and the donations from Aldi mean we can help even more people across the country who need that bit of extra support over the festive period.”

Earlier this month, Aldi posted that it had delivered record sales over the festive period, up 3.4% to £1.6bn in the four weeks to Christmas Eve.