Food banks have been banned from holding permanent collection points in the supermarket giant Asda.

The move has caused alarm among charities and customers after reports emerged on social media that trolleys and boxes where shoppers could donate food had disappeared. The new policy was instituted seemingly unannounced in January by the Walmart-owned food chain.

Some charities have said Asda's contributions account for 15-25 per cent of their donations.

The Trussell Trust runs hundreds of food banks nationwide and has collection points in numerous supermarkets including Tesco, Waitrose, Sainsburys and the Co-Op. A spokesman told Christian Today he would like to "engage with them to find out more about this decision and to see if we can find a way to ensure that Asda shoppers are able to donate food to food banks easily".

Adrian Curtis, Trussell Trust UK food bank director said: "We know that being able to donate food to local people in crisis matters to communities, and that permanent food bank collection points in supermarkets help ensure that food banks have a steady supply of food donations.

"If we want to tackle UK hunger as a nation, it's vital that big businesses play their part."

In addition to scrapping the food bank collection points, Asda have also ended their green token scheme whereby the company would donate to local charities according to how many shoppers placed plastic coins in collection points.

A spokesman for the store said the decision was based on a review of its community programme and would make the store's practices "fair and consistent for all the charities we support", he told the Guardian.