I READ the article (Echo, Dec 31) about Aldi kindly giving away surplus food enough for over 8,000 meals. This is great news but why just at Christmas?

Like the advert, a pet is for life, not just for Christmas, so should this practice not carry on indefinitely?

This was surplus food, they weren’t giving away food that was going to be sold, just getting a pat on the back for not dumping it, which is great, but come on, giving perfectly good food away that would have been dumped isn’t like giving away profits.

It also averts costly, unnecessary disposal charges.

This food should be given away 24/7 throughout the year free of charge to those in need – it’s not only a moral duty, it's advantageous to our planet.

If all the supermarkets gave away the thousands of tonnes of discarded foodstuff generated each year – yes thousands – the need for foodbanks would be eradicated overnight.

It would be an amazing, wonderful, New Year gesture for all of these companies to do this voluntarily. If not the Government should step in and make it law.

Come on Boris, flex those prime-ministerial muscles, I find it disgraceful in this day and age people needing to rely on food banks and the like.

Tesco even have the audacity to have areas where people, many who can ill afford to feed themselves, donate food that they have purchased from them.

Oh how benevolent of them when they themselves are making massive profits and destroying millions of pounds worth of food that could be given away.

John Cumberland, Rushyford.