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 industry.

It is very easy for suppliers to work with us. Simply drop an email to our Head of Food, Justin Pritchard.

justin@breadandbutterthing.org

Or call the Food team on 0333 004 0287

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 to redistribute their own-brand products without the need to remove branding or packaging. We also work with their manufacturing partners to collect any available edible surplus directly from the source.

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.

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.

  • Our rapid transport infrastructure combines our own fleet of refrigerated vans along with multiple haulier partners including DHL, DFDS, Fowler Welch, Freshlinc and Moran Logistics.

  • We collect same or next day across the UK utilising back hauling to minimise food miles and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

  • The Bread and Butter Thing has 2 warehouses offering chill and frozen storage. These are located in Eccles (Greater Manchester) 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 including farm bins and dolavs.

Creative Surplus Solutions

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

  • We provide cost-neutral options for farmers to help ensure that no crop goes to waste. We understand that financial constraints can make it difficult to prevent food loss, so our goal is to ensure you’re never left out of pocket. This includes protecting your income by offsetting losses from alternative waste streams such as animal feed or anaerobic digestion, covering labour costs for a final harvest if crops would otherwise be left in the field, and managing collection at our expense while returning any required assets.

  • Invite us for a factory walk-through and we’ll work alongside your technical teams to identify opportunities.

  • We can also step in to handle surplus that others are unable to take.

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

Get in touch with our Food team…

Justin at justin@breadandbutterthing.org

Hayley at hayley.mahon@breadandbutterthing.org

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