Tesco in Bromley-by-Bow will be holding a foodbank collection at its store on Friday and Saturday.

Poplar and Limehouse MP Jim Fitzpatrick is expected to lend a hand on Saturday morning.

Shoppers will be donating food to the Trussell Trust foodbank, a national charity that collects food for the homeless and the needy.

It is the fifth such collection organised by the Bromley-by-Bow supermarket which will match 30 per cent of the food donated by shoppers.

The collections will take place between 9am and 10pm on both days.

A spokesman for the store said: “We will be collecting food donated by our customers, to feed local people in need, who have fallen on hard times during the current economic difficulties that we are all experiencing.”

Earlier this year, the Trussell Trust said more than 350,000 people turned to food banks for help last year, almost triple the number who received food aid in the previous year.

It said the dramatic increase in the use of its food banks would continue in the coming months as poorer families struggle financially in the wake of the government’s welfare reforms.