A famous Penrith baked potato shop owner has gone viral after a heartwarming social media post.

Tim Lorton, of Tattie Tim’s Baked Potatoes, had grown tired of wasting “perfectly good” food and decided that any surplus food will be given to those that need it most, free of charge.

He explained: “I’ve had waste over the years and I’ve always just thrown it in the bin.

“I’ve been round to churches in the past as well.

“Then a friend of mine in Birmingham, he does a thing where he helps the homeless and it just made me thing maybe I could do something.

“I have a load of waste nearly every day; why don’t I just give it away?”

After coming up with the idea, Mr Lorton put together a social media post which he shared on his Facebook page letting everyone know what he was doing.

Since putting out the post it has had more than 1,400 likes and been shared more than 3,100 times.

“I’ve had an enormous, enormous response from it, which I wasn’t expecting,” Mr Lorton added.

“I’ve started to give the food away and it has been going good.

“I’ve had a really good response. I’ve been contacted by loads of different organisations, people and networks. Even networks I didn’t know existed.

“From now on things will never go in the bin; they’ll always go into people’s stomachs, which is where it belongs which is good.”

Mr Lorton has been blown away by the response his post has received.

He said: “I thought a few people might think it was a good idea but it’s gone crazy which is good; that’s what I wanted it to do.

“Even if I can only feed one person a day, it’s better than none.

“It could be any of us; any of us could be in a situation where we can’t afford to feed ourselves or pay the bills or you have tough choices to make.”

Visit Tim's stall to take him up on his offer.