A little slice of bread and butter

Over the years we’ve been delighted to support several charities and good causes by providing our work on a pro bono basis. For example, we created the brand identity and guidelines for Wigan Youth Zone, the brand and website for the charity Joining Jack which raises funds to research a cure for DMD, the brand and website for the Wigan Run Festival and 5k, branding and marketing collateral for ‘Beyond Wigan Pier’ a community musical and even designed posters for some of Nigel Brookwell’s crazy fund raisers - he’s one of those lunatics who puts himself through agony like running the London Marathon in a full deep-sea diving suit and he crawled from Wigan to Standish on his hands and knees.

Our longest involvement has been to support The Bread and Butter Thing, a charity which is making a real difference to people’s lives. Our Bread and Butter Thing story actually begins before it started as bd2’s MD Will Bentley was one of the founder trustees who helped to get it moving and he is currently chair of Trustees. The charity is the brain child of Founder Mark Game, who we’ve worked with for many years including in his previous role as CEO of discount food retailer Company Shop. Whilst in this role Mark gained a great deal of knowledge about the food industry and also of the food that goes to waste. He saw that many food surpluses, including lots fit for human consumption, was actually going to anaerobic digestion, animal feed and even landfill. He became increasingly concerned that this food could, and indeed should, be going to feed people in need.

This, and the reduction of waste, was the motivation behind the concept for The Bread and Butter Thing. Based on Mark’s industry knowledge it’s based on an agile approach in which small vans collect surplus produce directly from retailers, manufacturers and distributors. Inevitably most of this food is short-dated so it needs to be moved on quickly if it’s to be usable, so we take itstraight into the communities that need it. The food is then collated into a set of bags by local volunteers which are then bought by members. This is very important to the way The Bread and Butter Thing’s model operates - it’s a food club not a food bank. Anyone at all can sign up to be a member and it’s free to join. Then they pay less than £10 for three bags - one with fresh produce, one ambient and one with kitchen cupboard staples. Paying for the produce means it’s obviously not a hand out which adds dignity and also helps towards making the charity's operations cost-neutral.

Mark started with one rented van taking food to a community centre in Moss Side. It gained momentum quickly and from there it’s grown exponentially. The fleet of chilled vans has now expanded to over 40, which take food to over 130 community ‘hubs’ - generally community centres, churches or schools in areas of deprivation and this supports over 120,000 families in need. As part of TBBT's community engagement, we conduct regular surveys with our members which provides great feedback and incredible data from over 9,000 responses. We know, for example that our typical member has less than £25 a month, after other bills, to buy food to feed their families. Given that the Eatwell guide estimates a daily healthy meal costs over £7 per person, helping to stretch that £25 really helps
to try and make ends meet.

The charity has grown from Manchester onto Oldham and then across to the North East. Typically, we’re invited into an area by a Local Authority who has seen the value of what we’re doing in other areas. Each hub typically supports around 100 members which one van delivery covers, and then the van and its driver can service a number of hubs. We follow the industry standard ‘hub and spoke’ distribution model with our own warehouses which the vans collect from.

The model is very replicable and the charity has plans to expand nationally with more warehouses, vans and community hubs to help more members, which is being supported by Comic Relief who have committed over £1M. So, keep an eye out for more Bread and Butter Thing vans with the distinctive brand which we designed with lots of friendly characters to represent the people from the many communities TBBT supports.

To find out more about the charity, volunteering opportunities and how to donate, please visit www.breadandbutterthing.org