Howdon Community Hub and The Bread and Butter Thing: 5000 bags of affordable shopping packed for our local community

This Friday, just like every Friday since April 1st 2022, a team of volunteers arrived at the Hub, grabbed a coffee and enjoyed a catch up. At 11am, one of our colleagues from The Bread and Butter Thing pulled the chiller van into the car park. Like every week, the van was full to bursting with enough food for 80 people to buy 3 bags: fresh fruit and veg, store cupboard staples and chilled food ready for the fridge. Every week, our volunteers leap into action alongside a small number of staff to pack and distribute all this food to canny shoppers in the local area. Every week, 240 bags are packed, and this week we passed the incredible milestone of packing our 5000th bag of affordable shopping!

The Bread and Butter Thing (TBBT) launched in Manchester in 2016, with the aim of putting food that would normally be destined for the bin onto the tables of families across the country. They work with supermarkets and food producers to identify opportunities to reduce or redirect food waste, and distribute it as shopping through their network of community hubs. A basic package of 3 bags costs members just £7.50 a week, and is available to anyone who wants to keep food bills down as the cost of living crisis continues to bite. TBBT has continued to expand and is now approaching 60 hubs, where they regularly distribute over 100 tonnes of food a week. In 2021, they distributed 3185 tonnes of food, which is roughly equivalent to 7.5 million meals, and saved their members a collective £2.9 million!

Family Gateway has operated Howdon Community Hub since 2017, and in April 2022,  we became TBBT’s first base in North Tyneside. We were so excited to be a partner in their work and soon after had a dedicated team of volunteers who attend every Friday to make sure this invaluable service is provided to our community. TBBT has become a key part of our weekly schedule and has been an enormous help in increasing the number of people who are aware of the Hub and our wider work. Julie, our CEO said:

“We are really pleased to be working with TBBT and North Tyneside Council to bring this new service to the community in Howdon. We’ve been along to visit one of TBBT’s hubs and heard first-hand about the difference it is making to the people who use the service. A combination of the impact of Covid-19 and rising living costs has meant we’re seeing more and more people struggling to make ends meet. The Hub has been open throughout the pandemic supporting the community, including providing meals during the lockdowns. Now we are looking forward to welcoming more people back. We’ve got lots of exciting things planned, such as developing a new community garden, where we can grow our own fruit and veg.”

We were supported throughout the setup process by North Tyneside Council. Karen Clark; the council’s cabinet member for Health and Wellbeing attended the launch and said:

“We want North Tyneside to be a place where nutritious and affordable food is accessible to everyone, but we know that this is becoming increasingly difficult for many as living costs continue to rise. This new service will make a difference to hundreds of residents who are struggling, not only by providing a more affordable alternative and enabling their budget to stretch further, but also by offering other kinds of support and advice.”

Support from the council, our volunteers, staff and community members has made the incredible milestone of 5000 bags packed a reality. We want to say a huge thank you to everyone who makes our weekly service possible. Preventing food waste and helping local families control their rising bills are both issues that are very close to our hearts; being part of TBBT’s network gives us a chance to have a front line impact on these issues. We look forward to continuing working with TBBT and their suppliers to help as many people as possible throughout our communities.

Last year, TBBT calculated that the average weekly saving to one of their members was £26.50. This means that so far we have saved people across North Tyneside a collective £44,520! The cost of living crisis is one of the issues we are beginning to see affect more and more of the people we work with, and this is one of the easiest ways to save money quickly on your monthly bills. New members can sign up by texting 07860 063 304 with your full name, postcode, and quoting “Family Gateway.” There’s options to buy more bags for bigger families, or to buy different options like Vegetarian or Frozen bags. If you do decide to sign up, no matter what you purchase, there’ll be lots of friendly faces ready to make sure your affordable shopping gets to your family’s table and not the landfill.