When Shopping Becomes A Survival Skill

A weekly shop for less than a tenner sounds like a bargain, but the real story is what happens around the bags. We’re joined by Trina, who lives locally and volunteers every Friday at The Bread and Butter Thing. She shares how she first heard about the mobile food club after separating from her partner, and why packing bags with the team has become a highlight of her week, not just a “good deed”. 

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. 

Then we get practical about the cost of living crisis: savvy cooking, freezing and batch prep, whoopsies and yellow sticker shopping, and the mental load of making a tight budget work. We also zoom out to youth opportunity, work experience, apprenticeships and simple first steps that can help young people build skills and purpose. If you care about community support, food waste, affordable groceries, and what it really takes to get by right now, you’ll find plenty to take from this one. Subscribe, share with a friend, and leave us a review so more people can find the podcast.

Transcript

Welcome And What We Do

SPEAKER_02 0:12

Hello and welcome back to a slice of bread and butter with me, Vic and Mark. We're from the Bread and Butter Thing.

SPEAKER_01 0:18

We run a network of mobile food clubs that take surplus food from supermarkets, farms and factories. We take it straight into communities where families are struggling to get by.

SPEAKER_03 0:26

For less than a tenner, our members get bags packed with fruit, veg, fridge food, and cupboard staples. It's a weekly shop that helps stretch the budget and take some of the pressure off.

SPEAKER_01 0:34

Yep, and our members are at the heart of everything we do. They turn food into friendship and neighbours into community, and that's what makes

Trina’s Story And Volunteering

SPEAKER_01 0:41

us tick.

SPEAKER_03 0:41

And today it's Trina.

SPEAKER_00 0:58

I live locally in Flixon, Trafford. I volunteer at the bread and butter every Friday. I had a separation from my partner, the kids dad, two young children, two and a half years ago. My son, he was um at Scouts at the time, and um Sandra said I've I heard of the bread and butter and gave me some vouchers at that time.

SPEAKER_01 1:19

Who's Sandra?

SPEAKER_00 1:20

She's the scout leader.

SPEAKER_01 1:21

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:22

And she still volunteers, Sandra.

SPEAKER_01 1:23

Right, great.

SPEAKER_00 1:24

Um so that's where I heard about the bread and butter. And leading on from that, I started to volunteer myself to pack the bags.

SPEAKER_01 1:32

Which section do you do then?

SPEAKER_00 1:34

I do the cupboard, and then anything else that needs doing, we all help each other and get a move on. I leave at the end of the day with my face hurting because we've had such a giggle about things because perhaps someone's not stuck the bread in that bag quite well enough for it to look nice and tidy and nice. Yeah. I really enjoy it because for me, socially as well, it's for your own mental health and just uh it's lovely people to be around, yeah. It is lovely people.

SPEAKER_01 1:57

It's that reason to bring people together, isn't it? It's bringing the community together again.

Dementia, Loss And Being Seen

SPEAKER_00 2:03

So uh we lost my mum last January, she had dementia in the mum's last year. She was unable to walk. So in the wheelchair, I used to take her on a Friday and perhaps place a bag on her lap and we'll go around one of the you know, one of the rows kind of thing. But I think the people saw mum as a person and not the person in the wheelchair. You know, she was unable to speak to people, but they offered her a lot of love, and it was one of my mum's highlights of the week, to be fair. Yeah, do you know? And if it was raining, I thought, oh, it's windy, mum, I don't want to take you out in the wind, and she'd have a ever such of a grump on her.

SPEAKER_01 2:36

But yeah, yeah, and it it kind of draws you in a bit, doesn't it? Yeah, gives you those fond memories of touch points of your mum's life almost.

SPEAKER_00 2:45

Being able to get out and have that opportunity to be part of something is amazing, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01 2:50

Yeah. So it I think it's probably worth explaining to everybody where we are because we can hear cars and a nice A380's gone over the double decker plane, which is why it's so loud, but we're we're sat in the back of a library here, aren't we?

SPEAKER_00 3:05

Yeah, we are.

SPEAKER_01 3:06

Sat outside because obviously we don't want to be chatty inside

Food Skills, Whoopsies And Trying New

SPEAKER_01 3:10

a library. So you still use bread and butter?

SPEAKER_00 3:12

Yeah, so I think um it's made me look at food in a different way. That you can be savvy with food, like if you get lots of carrots, you can blanch them and put them in the freezer. I never used to buy what I call whoopsies, you know, on the date stuff. Yeah, but I'm always in the whoopsies now. Making good use of food, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01 3:30

It seems to be more important nowadays, right?

SPEAKER_00 3:32

Yeah, so the children they're like, oh I've not tried that, mum, and again, it's showing them that we've got this amount of food and what can we make from that as well.

SPEAKER_01 3:41

So that's nice. So the kids are trying new stuff.

SPEAKER_00 3:44

Yeah, yeah. There's certain things you would never buy at a supermarket, so again, it just opens your mindset of different things, doesn't it? Yeah, of course it does.

SPEAKER_01 3:53

So you get to try new things, I suppose, in a safe way.

SPEAKER_00 3:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:56

So what's the weirdest thing you've had? Um like uh two foot-long salami.

SPEAKER_00 4:02

Yes, we did have some of that. That was about a year ago, that was. Yeah, uh, we had actually taken a photo shoot, it would be some with that round his neck. Any one for salami.

SPEAKER_01 4:14

So, what jumps to mind as has gone up the most in your

Price Rises And What Feels Luxury

SPEAKER_01 4:19

day-to-day?

SPEAKER_00 4:19

I just think everything's gone up. Heating, everything, fruit, vegetables, I think things are smaller now, aren't they?

SPEAKER_01 4:25

They may have gone up more, but inflation, same price but smaller.

SPEAKER_00 4:29

So I think again, I'm I'm really savvy with kind of I'll look around, like you could go to sort of a home bargains and think that bar of four bars of chocolate is X amount, but then really they are smaller bars.

SPEAKER_01 4:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:41

So when you do look around for the sales on things, let's say Cadbury's chocolate bars, when a supermarket has got them on sale, they are bigger bars, aren't they? So it's looking at things, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:53

It's quite a luxury though, isn't it?

SPEAKER_00 4:55

Yeah, things are.

SPEAKER_01 4:56

So what things would you say nowadays are luxuries that used to be a everyday?

SPEAKER_00 5:03

Well, like I think you can go to a supermarket when there is more money and just choose what you want, can't you? There's not that pressure of thinking I've got this X amount of pounds. Yeah. You've got like pat lunches to think about, and you've got evening meals, and you know, you've got the odd treats you can have for children.

SPEAKER_01 5:19

You go to a supermarket nowadays, but occasionally, yeah, I don't with a plan though.

SPEAKER_00 5:23

Yeah, I do have a list because I think we could be side sweeped. Um again, it's two years ago when I started going to the bread and butter, it maybe look at food differently. It really has. What do you mean by that? That what we need and what we want is two different things, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01 5:37

It's really funny though, isn't it? Because I think over the years we're almost regressing slightly because I remember as a kid, you know, it used to be you'd plan your meals, you'd batch cook. I don't remember having meat every day, for example.

SPEAKER_00 5:50

No, we didn't when I was child. We had like butchers and bakers and veg shops. There was two round here. So you used to go out and buy what you needed for that day for that meal, didn't you?

SPEAKER_01 5:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:00

Bread, eggs, and potatoes, and you can make all sorts of meals.

SPEAKER_01 6:03

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And everyone had a deep fat fryer.

SPEAKER_00 6:06

Chip pan. Yeah.

Youth Work, Purpose And Apprenticeships

SPEAKER_00 6:09

Yeah. Communities aren't the same. And that's what started me on my youth work career. So my eldest, she's 29 now, and um Traffic Council. There was courses you could do self-defence and IT or whatever, there were different courses, but nobody wanted to do them. So that was the start of my path into my youth work now was community, like for bread and butter. I think there's opportunity for work experience for youth. They could come and do a bullet some volunteering and develop again. Yeah, there's a lot you can get from things, isn't there? You need to feel like you're doing something, you need a sense of belief that you've achieved something that day. I think you need purpose. Yeah, definitely.

SPEAKER_01 6:50

You've got to have something to get out of bed for, right?

SPEAKER_00 6:52

Yeah, definitely.

SPEAKER_01 6:53

I'm totally with you. And really relevant at the moment, everybody's talking about the number of opportunities is massively shrinking for people coming out of education now. Give us a plan, Trina. What's your view?

SPEAKER_00 7:07

I just think it's to offer like that that opportunity to um work experience to volunteer, because you know, I'm off the estate myself, and um some of the kids are not going to do well in the GCSEs.

SPEAKER_01 7:21

I think we're desperately lacking apprenticeships.

SPEAKER_00 7:23

It is mainly boys, it's some females that they've left school with no GCSEs, no qualifications for whatever reasons, and to uh fund the CSCS card, which is the health and safety certificate, to work on a building site, to have a CSCS card, it's a five-year qualification that they can work, go on any building site, and they've got the first step of being safety aware, that's a start of something, isn't it? Yeah, do you know? Again, that can be a way in if that can be the start of the first step of a ladder for a young person. How much if they didn't be in work, you know, get to 18 and claiming benefits?

SPEAKER_01 8:00

It's a really simple example, isn't it? Okay, so if we were looking at this from a perspective of what government could do, yeah, what would you say is some of the easy things to actually address the employment issue?

SPEAKER_00 8:14

I do think it's work experience, starting with that work experience.

SPEAKER_01 8:18

So from constructive rather than just go and make the tea, right?

SPEAKER_00 8:21

Yeah, definitely. So with an eye like youth work, the young people from 11 upwards can come and help prepare food, cook the meal, wash up afterwards. That's hospitality, isn't it? As well as like the kitchen hygiene. Developing the life skills to be able to cook and to make a meal. Because we have to cook sometimes, it's probably like 26 young people that have food in some some of the sessions. It's a lot of people, isn't it?

SPEAKER_02 8:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:48

If you think of like mental health for young people and adults, it's massive, isn't it? And people know me for who I am, they've known me for like 22 years in work, but I've benefited from volunteering on a Friday. It's my little niche that I go and have a good you know, we're serious, we get our work done. It's not that we don't get the work done, but uh just nice people to be around.

SPEAKER_01 9:09

So many times I've heard that, Trina. I I Brennan about it's my time.

SPEAKER_00 9:13

Yeah, that's with my friends, yeah, my knees.

SPEAKER_01 9:15

And I can be me.

SPEAKER_00 9:16

That's right, it is. You come away with your face hurting because you giggled and laughed. Like it's just over the silliest thing, like you know, move up, you're holding the line up, but you know.

SPEAKER_01 9:27

It's just that camaraderie, right?

SPEAKER_00 9:29

Yeah, it is, definitely. And you miss it. I have a hug off everyone before I go, you know. Hugging's good, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01 9:34

Yeah, you being you at the home.

SPEAKER_00 9:36

Yeah, yeah, definitely.

SPEAKER_01 9:38

You're not alone in that. I hear that so many times, and it and that's a lovely thing for me.

SPEAKER_00 9:42

Yeah. And I think there's a myth around like, oh, you've got to be on benefits or you've got to be homeless to get help. And it isn't, it's surplus food that will go to landfill. There needs to be a change in sort of head mindset for that. That people like think you're poor or something. No, it it's where you can save money, then who's not gonna do that, you know?

Yellow Stickers And The Portfolio Shop

SPEAKER_01 10:18

So I've had a thought about yellow stickers, right? Because yellow sticker shopping is coming up more and more. I thought, Vic, that maybe we could start a campaign of could you live on a yellow sticker shop?

SPEAKER_03 10:30

So you could do it if you'd shopped for a lot of yellow stickers for a while. You'd have to stockpile them because I don't think you go into a shop unless unless you were gonna meet the same thing. You know, there's always one item that they've just really like not predicted very well. So you could have I think it'd be really difficult.

SPEAKER_01 10:51

But aren't you proving the point how difficult it is?

SPEAKER_03 10:53

Yeah, but then the other thing that I was gonna say, which I think's more important, is you would absolutely not get your eat well plate because you would just be in like three pots of tatziki.

SPEAKER_01 11:05

These are all the points that the campaign could make, right? Because it is like you're gonna feel rubbish off the diet that you you're gonna have to compromise your shopping choices and choices no longer a luxury that you can actually afford.

SPEAKER_03 11:18

I think it's more about you know, yellow labels are one thing, aren't they? And we you know, it's like it's a tool. It's a tool, it's part of a portfolio shop. You know, you might do bread and butter, some yellow labels, and something else. You know, like in the olden days, we used to do it, might have been Trina that was talking about it, the butcher and the greengrocer and it was me that mentioned them, and I'm not in the olden days, thank you very much. Okay, but you can say that when those things were big on the high street, there was also half day closing. That is a truth.

SPEAKER_01 11:52

That is a truth, and no one nothing was open on a Sunday.

SPEAKER_03 11:55

Exactly. And when did that was bloody yonks ago now?

SPEAKER_01 11:58

Bloody yonks is still olden days to me. I'm not I I didn't I I didn't grow up in a Victorian era, okay?

SPEAKER_03 12:07

Anyway, so people used to do that portfolio shop, and we used to go to lots of places to get all the food, and then supermarkets became a thing, and convenience was like the be all and end all, and they all had car parks and were big and they could get everything, and they would, you know, and then they did Sunday opening and blah blah. And now do you not think that we're going back because of the situation that we're in from like a cost of living perspective, where we're doing people are doing a portfolio shop, but in a very different way. So it is a bread and butter, some yellow stickers, some extra bits. So I don't think we need the yellow labels and not the answer campaign.

SPEAKER_01 12:43

No, no, no, no. It it wasn't a it's not the answer campaign. It was more about walking our shoes a bit.

SPEAKER_03 12:51

Well, I think more and more our members are spending more time on shopping to get the better that they can.

SPEAKER_01 12:57

Let's just go back to what we were talking about a few weeks ago with Hannah and the Foo Food Foundation, right? Because the whole point of it really is to say actually you can't get a healthy diet if you're on a budget and you're buying yellow sticker stuff.

SPEAKER_03 13:11

Yeah.

Inclusion At Hubs And Cardboard Therapy

SPEAKER_01 13:12

Anyway, it was also nice because Trina did mention it, how much it meant that the volunteers really saw a mum and didn't kind of see the wheelchair, they just saw a mum.

SPEAKER_03 13:20

I love that, and you see that in a lot of our hubs. We have lots of amazing people with lots of different challenges. You know, there's not one hub that I go to where there's not, you know, somebody with a challenge that everybody is just kind of working around. So at Westie, there's the the volunteer that only opens the white bags, the wheelchair bound in the open that is a really big service to the rest of the volunteers because it means that they can just part. And then there's cardboard people. So some people uh that support us have got special educational needs and they love doing the cardboard, and you see this across a number of hubs. Cardboard is a great job. Breaking down the card and putting it in the bag, and you just see it in lots of different communities. There's always someone that's really part of the family that there's just a proper, good, reasonable adjustment for.

SPEAKER_01 14:10

But do you know? I I I've got to say I love a cardboard moment. If I can just stand there and let all the volunteers just bring all of the cards that I break it down and put it in the sacks, etc. I love that. It's a proper therapy for me that I just can just sit there and total chill factor to me that one.

SPEAKER_03 14:26

So, this is a truth or dare like moment. How many times have you c climbed in the bag and you stomped it down?

SPEAKER_01 14:33

I'm not allowed to answer that really, am I?

SPEAKER_03 14:35

In my mind's eye, you are not breaking it up nicely, you're like ripping it and then you're getting in and you're bashing it with your feet.

SPEAKER_01 14:42

Okay, full confession. If I'm having to do the card as well as everything else, because there's very few volunteers, I have done that on many occasions where I've just shoved everything in the sack and just jumped up and down on it. Because you just have to go faster, right?

SPEAKER_03 14:58

If I knew that was going to be your answer.

SPEAKER_01 15:01

But that that that wasn't the moment I was thinking. It's a proper Zen moment for me when I can just stand there flattening all the cord, ripping it and separating it. I I love that.

SPEAKER_03 15:10

Mark, how many times have I got in the dumpy bag to smash down the cardboard?

SPEAKER_01 15:15

I reckon you'd just do that every time.

SPEAKER_03 15:16

Never you are not like someone that climbs on my own wheelie bin to bash it down. Absolutely not.

SPEAKER_01 15:22

No, kids did did actually take a photo of me once in a wheelie bin.

SPEAKER_03 15:26

Yeah, it's not a good look.

SPEAKER_01 15:28

No, I know, I I know.

SPEAKER_03 15:29

I'm pretty sure Trina's never done it either.

SPEAKER_01 15:31

True.

Volunteering Benefits And Community Chats

SPEAKER_03 15:32

So again, like I think what came through brilliantly with Trina is about how volunteering gives you something, and it's not, you know, yes, it's helping the community, yes, it's part of being part of the family, but it's that thing that it's like a highlight in the week. It doesn't feel like what other people think traditional volunteering is, where I'm going and doing a good thing. It's like, no, this was this was really special for me, and I got almost more out of it than I put in, which is brilliant.

SPEAKER_01 16:01

I don't think it's said enough by us because we hear that time and again as well from our volunteers. Yeah. The number of times that they create their own community or friendship or what however you describe it. I I love it. Like Trina says, she comes away and her face is aching because she's been smiling and laughing so much. I love it.

SPEAKER_03 16:18

Yeah. You see, I get a bit of an insight into that because I'm on a couple of volunteer WhatsApp groups, and I don't know quite how I've got on them. That could be dangerous, but I can't leave because then it looks really rude. So I'm now stuck in these WhatsApp groups, and I have to mute the notifications because they're swapping notes on what they had for dinner, what they've done with stuff in their bags, who's going on holiday, can someone pick me up this from the pharmacy? It's absolutely it's like a family WhatsApp chat. It's bonkers, but brilliant.

SPEAKER_01 16:53

I ended up on a dog walking WhatsApp group and it went bananas like that, and I left it. The number of people that snubbed me after that.

SPEAKER_03 17:02

Wow, that's so funny. I think what was interesting with Trina is thinking about food in a different way. You know, what do I need and what do I want? And it comes back to the choice thing, doesn't it? Because actually, are we just stopping ourselves having what we want because it's just what we need because we can't afford what we want.

SPEAKER_01 17:17

Yeah. Tactical shopping again, right? It's really interesting the number of people that talk about how planned and rigid you have to be to go and shop nowadays and save a few quid. Truth be told, Rick, it it's why I do online shopping because actually it stops you going down the aisles. You know what you want, and you just go bang, you plan it, book it. There's no impulse or whatever about it.

SPEAKER_03 17:41

See, I have a different strategy. I have exactly what I'm cooking, the list that I need, I've checked all my cupboards and my fridges so I can use up the last pepper rather than getting three ones, and then I've got a list, and it's a challenge to get in and out of the supermarket as quick as you can, and without seeing anybody that you know.

SPEAKER_01 18:00

You paint a picture of this is Vic Harper who puts the blinkers on and goes through the world just not wanting to meet everybody, right? And and then I go, isn't it ironic that actually we're encouraging all these people to form friendships and build communities, and yet Vic doesn't want to know anyone.

SPEAKER_03 18:18

That's kind of not fair. But I do like doing a focused shop. Like I've got my game face on, I'm in the supermarket.

SPEAKER_01 18:25

I've seen that game face, I know what that looks like, especially when you're packing bands.

SPEAKER_03 18:29

It's focused, focused, just gotta do it. So um, but I also think what we hear from a lot of members, and I really relate to it, you know, they don't speak to the neighbours, but they've found their community at bread and butter. And whilst we're geographical and it's place-based, it's a community of interest, isn't it? Which I think is more powerful.

Find Us Online And Join In

SPEAKER_03 18:57

If you'd like to know more about the bread and butter thing and what we get up to, you can find us at Team TVBT on Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, LinkedIn, online at breadandbutterthing.org.

SPEAKER_01 19:06

And if you have any feedback or thoughts on the podcast or you'd like to come in having at it, drop us an email at podcast at breadandbutterthing.org.

SPEAKER_03 19:13

Yeah, and we're always open to new members at all of our hubs. So if you want to benefit from our affordable food scheme or you want to promote it to someone that you know, you can find your nearest hub on the become a member page of the website.

SPEAKER_01 19:24

And please do all those things that podcasts ask you to do. Like us, subscribe to us, leave us a review, or share us with your friends and chat about us on social. And we'll see you next time.

SPEAKER_03 19:32

See ya.