Tesco has teamed up with chef Jamie Oliver to teach more than 1,000 community cooks how to make the most of food donations and prevent waste.

The Tesco Community Cookery School will offer training and advice to cooks on preparing nutritionally balanced meals from food donations and how to handle unusual or unexpected ingredients and large quantities of seasonal produce.

The free training, offered in partnership with food charity FareShare, will teach cooks knife skills and nutrition to recipes for base sauces to compliment a variety of donated products.

Those attending will also receive free cooking equipment.

The programme, launching in London today, will roll out across the UK throughout the year.

Tesco stopped sending food to landfill in 2009 and in 2016 pledged that no food safe for human consumption would go to waste in its operations.

It donates 300,000 meals of surplus food to more than 7,000 different community and charity groups every week.

Tesco chief executive Dave Lewis said: “Surplus food donations can make a huge difference to people in need, but can also create challenges for community cooks faced with unexpected, unusual or large volumes of a particular product.

“With Jamie’s help, we believe we can inspire, train and support charities to do even more with the donations they receive.”

Oliver said: “I’ve written these recipes to arm all those amazing community cooks with the tools to create something delicious and balanced for people who need it the most.

“It is all about giving otherwise-wasted ingredients some love, and transforming them into tasty, nutritious meals.”