McDonald's donates food to Cransley Hospice in Kettering

McDonald's has donated food to Cransley Hospice in Kettering after closing its restaurants.

The fast food chain announced on Sunday that it would be closing all its restaurants completely, including takeaway and drive-thru, by the end of Monday, March 23.

As a result, McDonald's in Orion Way, Kettering, made a large donation of food to Cransley Hospice.

The restaurant's business manager, Jamie DeRosa, said: "I had excess stock and rang the hospice to see if they would like me to donate.

"They said that would be amazing so I took it and dropped it all off. It contained eggs, milk, lettuce and tomatoes."

A photo being shared on Facebook shows a Cransley staff member with a trolley of food.

Jamie said: "The franchise of my restaurant requested that excess food was granted to those who needed it.

"Therefore, I decided to call Cransley."

Jamie said the hospice received around 100 eggs, 18 bottles of four pints of milk, one box of shredded lettuce, one box of tomatoes and one litre of mini milk sachets for tea or coffee.

McDonald's decided to close all of its restaurants on Sunday with all sites closing at the end of yesterday (Monday).

The company said: "It has become clear that maintaining safe social distancing whilst operating busy takeaway and drive thru restaurants is increasingly difficult and therefore we have taken the decision to close every restaurant in the UK and Ireland by 7pm on Monday 23rd March.

"We will be working closely with community groups across the UK and Ireland to distribute food from our restaurants to those most in need."

A spokesman for McDonald's said the company's restaurants were making food donations to charities and community groups all over the country today (Tuesday) through Food Drop, a website where groups could request a donation.

The spokesman said: "We are proudly partnering with food distribution group Food Drop to distribute all remaining food from over 230 community hub restaurants this afternoon."

Food being donated included bottled drinks, bread products, salad, fruit and carrot bags, eggs, bacon, bakery products and more.