A weekly bag of surplus food can be the start of something bigger. Things like a reason to get out, a proper chat, and a room full of people who notice if you’re missing. We’re back with a slice of bread and butter to head up to the North East and meet Carol, a Fordley hub volunteer just outside Newcastle who first came along as a member, then got “sucked in” when the team needed more hands. 

Shania joins us for a conversation that starts with food and ends up somewhere much deeper. She shares what it feels like to find safety when you’ve spent years of judgement. She talks frankly about being trans, living with social anxiety and why walking into a new place can feel like a risk. What changes everything is the atmosphere at the hub. It's the familiar faces,  encouragement, and the kind of everyday kindness that turns volunteers into mates and, sometimes, into family.

A weekly bag of surplus food can be the start of something bigger. Things like a reason to get out, a proper chat, and a room full of people who notice if you’re missing. We’re back with a slice of bread and butter to head up to the North East and meet Carol, a Fordley hub volunteer just outside Newcastle who first came along as a member, then got “sucked in” when the team needed more hands. 

£8.50 for three bags of shopping sounds like a scam until you stand next to the van and watch the food keep coming. We sit down with Liz Cope, safeguarding and family liaison officer at St John’s Primary School in Radcliffe, to hear how a Bread and Butter Thing school hub goes from “I’m not sure this will work” to a Monday afternoon fixture that families, staff and volunteers genuinely look forward to.

A bag of surplus food can be brilliant… and still leave you thinking, what on earth am I meant to cook with this? We’re on location at Sale Moore Community Centre to talk with Roxy, who has a rare mix of warmth, grit, and practical know-how, and she shows how she adds some cooking support to our bags and generates impact of her own. 

One slip on black ice can flip your whole life, and that is exactly what Vicky’s story shows. We sit down at Broomwood Community Centre in Altrincham to talk about hearing loss, the strange shock of getting hearing aids, and how quickly “normal life” can become appointments, recovery, and making tough choices just to keep the bills paid.

A steel beam, one split-second accident, and four and a half years spent shut away from the world. That’s where Kieran’s story could have ended, but it didn’t. We sit down with Kieran from Broomwood, a fitness trainer and wellbeing coordinator, to talk about what recovery actually looks like when you are living with PTSD, anxiety, and depression, and how volunteering can turn into a lifeline rather than “just helping out”.

Ten years can disappear in a blur, unless you stop and look at what it actually took to keep the doors open. We’re marking a decade of The Bread And Butter Thing with a proper origin story, the uncomfortable money truths, and the moments that turned a local experiment into a national affordable food network. Jane, our co-founder and the numbers brain behind the operation, joins us to talk about the early gamble: cutting costs, losing a salary, and giving the idea just long enough to prove it could stand on its own feet.

AI is everywhere right now, but here is the question we cannot dodge: can it show real empathy when someone is struggling to put a meal on the table? We go there, properly, while keeping our feet on the ground with the day-to-day reality of food clubs, surplus food redistribution, and what it takes to support families who are working hard just to make ends meet.

Retirement is meant to feel like freedom, but for a lot of people it can land more like silence. Anne is an ex-teacher who took early retirement, tells us what it’s like to go from a busy school community to days that feel smaller, with friends still working and confidence slowly slipping. Then she walks into a Bread and Butter hub and, within weeks, finds herself back in the thick of people, laughter, and purpose. 

We’re in Gateshead with Vicki, who brings years of childcare and family support into the heart of the Deckham Family Hub in Carhill. She shares how Bread and Butter has grown from a quiet pick-up into a genuinely welcoming community space, with parent carer volunteers driving the atmosphere and shaping what the hub becomes. We talk about the “Family Voice” approach, how confidence grows when people are trusted with real responsibility, and why the mix of parents, grandparents, aunties, uncles, and first-time volunteers matters. 

Three jobs alongside a full-time nursing degree sounds intense enough, but Michaela’s life keeps stacking up: a menagerie of pets, a move to a new area, and now becoming newly approved foster carers with their first placement. We talk about what it really takes to keep going when you’re doing the “right” things, yet the money still doesn’t work and you find yourself living week to week.

Bags so heavy people bring trolleys. And a volunteer team laughing so much they come home with aching faces. That’s the reality behind this chat with Geoff, a former military medic and civil servant who’s found a second family through The Bread and Butter Thing. 

We talk about Geoffs years in the military, travelling with different regiments, and what it’s like to step into a new routine after service and retirement. From there, the story turns local. 

We talk about dignity and belonging, including Trina’s moving memories of bringing her mum, who had dementia and used a wheelchair, to the hub. Being welcomed, included and truly seen turns a practical affordable food scheme into something deeper: a community that shows up, week after week. Along the way, we explore how surplus food diverted from landfill can ease food insecurity without the stigma people often attach to support. 

Donna shares how she first came along through family, why she chose to volunteer, and what keeps her coming back week after week. The detail that lands hardest is also the simplest: people need to be seen, listened to and heard. That’s why the hub is not just food redistribution, it is friendship, routine and a bit of much-needed laughter. We also get into the dignity piece: paying a little towards the bags changes the whole tone, shifting it away from charity stigma and towards a “canny shop” that helps pennies go further.

Hunger in the UK is not just an empty fridge problem, and it definitely isn’t solved by telling people to “just get a job”. We’re joined by Camille and Claire from the Sodexo Stop Hunger Foundation to talk about what sits underneath food insecurity, and what it takes to build support that actually sticks. 

Food prices keep rising, even when the headlines say inflation is “down”, so what does getting by actually look like day to day? We sit down with Samantha, a Manchester YouTuber behind the channel Trying to Get By, who shares the practical systems that help her household stay afloat. Surplus food schemes, freezer routines, price tracking, and the kind of honest compromises that make vegan and vegetarian eating sustainable on a tight budget.

A healthy diet should not be a luxury item, yet the numbers in the Food Foundation’s Broken Plate report make it feel exactly like that. We’re joined by Hannah from the Food Foundation to talk through what the report is really saying about the UK food system, and why so many families are being pushed towards cheap calories even when they want to eat well.

Homelessness can happen faster than most of us want to believe and the hardest part is not just the lack of a roof, it’s the constant fear, boredom, and a whole new set of unwritten rules you have to learn overnight. We speak with Matthew, who shares a raw and thoughtful account of how domestic abuse and mental health trauma led to six months on the streets, and what daily life really looked like: finding food, keeping clean, staying safe, and trying to hold on to hope. Content warning: this conversation includes references to domestic abuse and suicide attempts.

Diana joins us with her dog Gizmo in the background and tells the kind of story that sticks with you. what it’s like to live through a nervous breakdown, carry anxiety for years, and still keep turning up as a parent?

We talk about the fear and loss of control that comes with mental health trauma, how dyspraxia can make everyday life harder than people assume, and the quiet confidence it takes to say, “That was then, this is now”, while you’re still in the middle of recovery.