Where do the food go when the shops close?
The story of Breadline started over a decade ago in Borough Market, where I sold apples for a family-run farm. These formative years in the market taught me much about food.
Every stall would have leftovers at the end of the trading day – food that is still good to eat, but no longer fit for sale. Traders would take the time to pack away food to share instead of throwing it out in the bins. I didn’t know it then, but I was already doing food rescue.
The question of what happens to food when they can no longer be sold is valid at all levels – whether it is a single bakery, a market, or a city. Disposing food at consumption stage is that much more wasteful as they have already gone through the full production cycle. Read more about food waste here.
The goal of Breadline is to save perfectly edible loaves from going to waste. It is a web application that connects volunteers to bakeries to collect surpluses for those who need it. The platform makes information shareable and actionable so that volunteers can arrive just-in-time to rescue food from being wasted. Read more about Breadline here.
The collected loaves are then delivered the same night to our community partners who serve the homeless, refugee families and the elderly poor. Some partners distribute the same night, or latest the next morning for breakfast. Our current network of 61 shops yields about 1500-1800 loaves every Friday, so that’s that many breakfasts served! Follow Breadline news here.
