Caring about communities and one another

In the 2019-2020 financial year Tesco Hungary focused on supporting local communities and fighting food waste. Our magazine interviewed managing director Zsolt Pártos.

Did Tesco manage to realise its goals in 2019?

Zsolt Pártos
managing director
Tesco-Global Áruházak

– Tesco supports non-governmental organisations and community programmes that contribute to the well-being of people living in the areas where Tesco stores are located. In 2019 Tesco volunteers worked more than 100,000 hours for local communities. The Tesco Angel Foundation provided net HUF 6.7 million worth of financial help to 56 Tesco workers in the 2019-2020 fiscal year. We spent more than 121,000 of training hours with educating workers. Tesco Hungary employs more than 550 disabled people and is proud to have won the Disability Friendly Workplace Award several times. This spring we launched the Women’s Network forum, where women employees can exchange their experiences.

What did the COVID-19 pandemic change at Tesco Hungary?

– Since early March we have taken several steps to guarantee the biggest safety to shoppers, workers and supplier partners. Tesco also changed the home delivery protocol to make it more pandemic-proof and increased the coverage of online orders in May, plus we launched the Tesco Box service. Workers received extra support at these hard times – the right work conditions were created for them and the company paid them a bonus.

What are you focusing on in the remaining part of the year?

– Tesco will carry on with its food waste reduction efforts in partnership with the Hungarian Food Bank Association. At the moment 90 percent of Tesco stores participate in the programme. We have also joined the Online Marketplace initiative of the Hungarian Chamber of Agriculture, in order to support Hungarian farmers. (x)