A SUPERMARKET giant is taking steps to ensure Santa’s reindeer don’t go hungry this Christmas.

Morrisons is giving away bags of wonky carrots so people can leave them out for Santa Claus and his four-legged friends when they come visiting on Christmas Eve.

The carrots will be available in paper bags from the entrance of the store in Worth Way, Keighley, on Saturday, December 21.

But there is also a serious side to the initiative.

The company is striving to introduce vegetables to more children and is highlighting the fact that wonky carrots may be oversized, misshapen or scarred, but the taste is unaffected.

Morrisons says that whilst sales of carrots in its stores soar in the run-up to Christmas, from around 450,000 bags a week to over 1.6 million, wonky carrots only account for between ten and 15 per cent.

The Carrots for Rudolph scheme is also designed to give a boost to British farmers.

Unseasonably wet weather in October and last month has been blamed for a larger-than-normal crop of the wonky veg.

Alastair Ferguson, a carrot farmer for the company, said: “The heavy rainfall this year has made harvesting very challenging.

“We’ve plenty of standard carrots for Christmas dinners – but also have a lot of wonky ones!

“Carrots for Rudolph is helpful because it introduces customers to wonky, finds these carrots a home and stops them being wasted.”

Andy Todd, a carrot buyer at Morrisons, said the firm was keen to support its farming community.

He added: “We want to make it easy for people to enjoy magical Christmas traditions and at the same time we are keen to highlight that wonky carrots are just as tasty as perfect-looking carrots.”

The tradition of leaving food and drink out for Father Christmas and his reindeer can be traced all the way back to ancient Norse mythology, where children would leave out food for Sleipnir – an eight-legged horse ridden by the God Odin – in the hope that he would stop by on his travels and leave gifts in return.

Morrisons is also promoting another festive tradition by giving out Christmas oranges for stockings, on December 22.