Become a Member

Our affordable food club offers low cost weekly shopping bags made up of fruit and veg, fridge favourites and cupboard staples from high street supermarkets, food manufacturers and farmers.

We never know what we’re going to get from day to day, which means each week your bag of food will be different. But it is always quality, fresh produce. You will probably need to top up from the shops as well, but our food will go a long way to helping you feed your family affordably.

Our weekly bags are made up of surplus food from high street supermarkets, food manufacturers and farmers.

Surplus food happens for lots of reasons – sometimes there is a fault with the packaging or there may just be too much of it for the supermarkets to handle.

We are determined to do our bit to reduce food waste in the UK, while at the same time ensuring that surplus food goes to the people who need it the most. We work closely with our suppliers to encourage and help them to donate their surplus food safely and effectively, which we then redistribute to our network of members, via our food hubs and partners.

The food is taken to our warehouses, where it’s sorted or stored, before loading onto our fleet of chilled and frozen vans for delivery to the community hubs. Then it gets unloaded by volunteers who pack into carrier bags for our members to collect.

Yes, every week we’ll send you a reminder text the day before your delivery.

Usually this will be in the afternoon.

You don’t have to use TBBT every week - if you don’t reply or reply ‘NO’ to our delivery text, you’ll still be asked in future weeks.

If you book but can’t make it, please text ‘CANCEL’ as soon as you can. If you book but don’t come to collect, there may be other people on the waiting list missing out and our food may end up going to waste.

That’s OK. We understand that things change.

Either, you could ask someone else to collect on your behalf.

Or, if that’s not possible, text CANCEL so that we can make sure another family can have the food instead.

If you text CANCEL you will still get your invitation text the following week as normal.

Prices range from £5 for an individual bag to £17 for a large family, but whichever offer you opt for, you will be saving on your normal weekly food bill.

As the bags vary from day to day, some weeks the savings will be greater than others. However, you will always be paying much less than in the shops and have new foods to try.

Very occasionally, if food supplies that day are low, we will not have enough for the 3 bags. If this is the case, we will lower the price.

We want you to feel we are making a difference to your weekly food bills.

You can pay by cash or card on collection at your local hub.

Don’t forget - someone can collect on your behalf if you can’t make it.

We also accept Healthy Start Vouchers.

Sorry, you can’t return anything as we have to empty the van every day.

But you can swap! If there’s anything you don’t like, ask another members to swap with you..

Please Note: Members can’t sell on food purchased at The Bread and Butter Thing.

Some of our hubs are over-subscribed which means that there are too many people for TBBT to feed every week.

But we do run a ‘priority list’ to make sure the scheme is as fair as possible.

If you can’t get on the list one week, the next week you get a priority text.

This means you are texted 24 hours early to offer you shopping that week. But you still have to reply YES to the text.

Sometimes the priority list is also very full and rolls over into a third week. If this happens you will get your priority text early the following week again.

We do offer in strict rotation so you will get to the top of the list even if it takes a couple of weeks.

If you can’t come and collect please don’t text – then another family can have that food and you will still get your text the following week.

Some of our food has gone past its ‘Best Before’ date BUT that doesn’t mean that you can’t eat it!

With proper storage - for instance in its original packaging and sealed with a clip or in an airtight container - lots of foodstuffs can be eaten long after their Best Before date, including:

• Crisps can still be edible for a good month after their best before deadline.

• Biscuits and cereals can last for another six months.

• Baked beans and other tinned goods can last in your store cupboard for a whole year, as can sweets and bottled pasta sauce.

And don’t throw away that packet of dried pasta that you’ve found at the back of a cupboard. If stored correctly, it should still be safe to eat around three years after its best before date has expired.

We will not provide food that is after its ‘USE BY’ date because this is about food safety, not food quality.

You can eat food on its ‘USE BY’ date or, if you have a freezer, pop it in. Just make sure you make a note of how long it will be freezer safe and how to defrost.

Because the food we receive changes day to day, we can’t guarantee that everything is suitable for people with allergies.

PLEASE CHECK THE LABELS!

No problem - just let a TBBT staff member know and we’ll stop sending the texts.

Alternatively, you can text ‘STOP’ and we will stop sending the weekly texts.

And if you change your mind that’s no problem either, just pop along to a hub or send us a new text and we will happily sign you up again.

No.

We want to strengthen communities and help make life more affordable.

To help us with this we will work with your hub to bring in other people that we think can help with things like health, utilities and debt. If you are struggling to access any support then let us know and we will do our best to help.

Absolutely!

We won’t sell your data and we only share it with people who help us to deliver our services to you.

We only store your name, postcode and contact number and will only use your data to contact you to find out if you want food each week.

Occasionally we will ask you for feedback to help us improve our services.

Please see our Privacy Policy for more details.