Colorful illustration of various grocery items including a pineapple, bananas, grapes, strawberries, carrots, green peppers, a pumpkin, orange juice, and packaged foods like soup, pasta, tomatoes, squash, and hoops cereal, arranged on a white plate.

Working with suppliers:

We work with retailers, manufacturers, farmers and food producers from across the food industry and we make it as easy as possible for suppliers to work with us.

Here’s how!

For more details: get in touch with our Food Co-ordinators, Justin at justin@breadandbutterthing.org, Hayley at hayley.mahon@breadandbutterthing.org and Rhona at rhona.yuille@breadandbutterthing.org

Or call them on 0333 004 0287

What you need to know!

Food, Glorious Food

We accept the following food product:

•        Ambient and produce past Best Before (working to Wrap guidelines).

•        Short dated chill and use by products (up to 24 hours before use).

•        Frozen product up to six months past its Best Before.

•        Farm and field: including outgrades, grade 2-3 produce, pitting and blemishes.

•        Factory: including bulk, WIP, mis-labelled, meat ends and incorrect weight.

•        Retail: including rejections, returns, overs, short life and product not picked up by supplier.

Illustration of canned food with four cans: spaghetti, tomatoes, beans, and soup, arranged on a gray surface.

Own label permissions

We have own label permissions for manufacturers from a whole host of retailers:

The brands listed below have all authorised The Bread and Butter Thing with permission to redistribute their own-brand products without the need to remove branding or packaging, plus the authorisation to work with their manufacturing partners to collect from source any available edible surplus.

Aldi, Amazon, Asda, Best Food, Bidfood, Booker, Booths, Brakes, Coop, Iceland, Lidl, Makro, M&S, Morrisons, Sainsbury’s and Waitrose

ALDI logo with blue stylized lines above the white uppercase text 'ALDI' on a blue background, bordered by red, orange, and yellow rectangles.
Amazon logo with black text and orange arrow
Logo for booths at The Good Grocers.
The words 'CO' and 'OP' in large blue letters stacked vertically, on a black background.
Lidl logo with yellow circle, red border, and blue background, featuring the word 'Lidl' in bold blue letters with a red diamond replacing the dot over the 'i'.
ASDA logo in green text on a black background.
M&S Food logo in black text on a white background
Morrisons logo featuring a green text with yellow and green leaf design above, and the text "Since 1899" below.
Sainsbury's logo with orange text on a white background.
Logo of Waitrose & Partners with green text on a white background.

Logistics that make things easy for you

A delivery truck with an illustration of community service activities, including food distribution, volunteering, and children playing, with the words 'The bread and butter thing' on the side.

  • We have a solid logistics infrastructure with our own fleet of 30 refrigerated vans plus the support of several national hauliers. This includes the routine use of back hauling to minimise food miles and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

  • TBBT has three TBBT warehouses offering chill and frozen storage. These are located in Trafford, Manchester, Stoke and Chilton, County Durham. We also have additional frozen storage space with partners in across the UK.

  • We offer tray and pallet de-hiring as well as other asset returns.

Creative Surplus Solutions

We enjoy the challenge of finding bespoke solutions for our partners. For example:

·        We offer cost neutral solutions to farmers to ensure no crop is wasted. We know there can be financial barriers to stopping food going to waste and we want to make sure you are not out of pocket. This could include covering costs to make sure there is:

a)       No loss in revenue from waste streams such as animal feed or anaerobic digestion.

b)       If you are going to leave crops in the field, we will pay for the labour to carry out a final harvest.

c)       We will collect food at our cost and return your assets if needed.

·        Take us on a factory walk to see what we can uncover with your technical teams.

·        Use us to mop up surpluses others can’t take.

Let us know your surplus challenge and we’ll help you find a solution!

Get in touch with our Food Coordinators, Justin at justin@breadandbutterthing.org, Hayley at hayley.mahon@breadandbutterthing.org and Rhona at rhona.yuille@breadandbutterthing.org

Or call them on 0333 004 0287

Cartoon illustration of a person with glasses, short hair, and a blue shirt, smiling.

  • “Since 2016, we have worked closely with The Bread and Butter Thing to help distribute our surplus food. This partnership allows us to not only reduce our food waste but support great causes at a local level. The team is incredibly flexible and works closely with our sites to ensure food is collected and distributed in a quick manner. ”

    Ruth McDonald, Corporate Services Director, Morrisons

  • “Worldwide Fruit has always been determined to reduce its quantities of edible surplus that go to waste but we needed a redistribution partner that could work flexibly with the complex logistics of moving tonnes of fruit around the country.”

    Andy Mitchell, Senior Technical Manager, Worldwide Fruit Ltd

  • “We choose to work with TBBT as a key redistribution partner for our edible surplus because its team is flexible, responsive and innovative in the way they approach surplus and they are able to take all kinds of product from ingredients through to finished goods. Cranswick has ambitious sustainability plans to have zero edible food waste by 2030 and TBBT are helping us to deliver that whilst ensuring our surplus helps support families who need it.”

    Clare Burcham, Group Second Nature Coordinator, Cranswick