RINGWOOD Waitrose urged shoppers during November and December to dig deep and buy an extra couple of food items to donate to Bournemouth Foodbank.

And in the run up to Christmas, generous customers collected 17 large shopping trolleys bursting with food, amounting to almost half a ton.

Operations manager Neil Scorey said: “Customers responded extremely well to the charity.

“I think people like the idea of giving something that they can clearly see the end use of.

“Branch partner Henry Barker was kept very busy for two days, traying up and organising more than 80 crates of food, and raising awareness of what was going on in the branch.”