41. How working professionals are being pushed into hardship and what businesses can do to help | Mark Game

Summary

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Podcast Summary: James Reed: All About Business

Episode 41: How Working Professionals Are Being Pushed Into Hardship and What Businesses Can Do to Help | Mark Game

Release Date: August 18, 2025
Host: James Reed, Chairman and CEO of Reed Group
Guest: Mark Game, CEO & Founder of the Bread and Butter Thing

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Episode Overview

This episode explores the rise of in-work poverty and how professionals—despite being employed—are struggling to make ends meet amid rising living costs. James Reed sits down with Mark Game, CEO of the Bread and Butter Thing, to discuss the ongoing hardships UK working families face, the evolving nature of poverty, and what businesses and local authorities can do to both relieve immediate needs and rebuild community support.

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Main Discussion Points and Insights

1. The Changing Face of Poverty in the UK

• Wage Stagnation vs Cost of Living
  • Average salaries stalled from the 2000s, no longer keeping pace with surging living costs.
  • “Wages don't pay as much as they did. Things cost a hell of a lot more ... working families that are doing all the right things ... still can't make things stretch.” – Mark Game (01:48)
• In-Work Poverty
  • Many Bread and Butter Thing members are working professionals facing hardship.
  • Case example: A data analyst and his wife (a payroll clerk) saw their mortgage quadruple after a rate change, pushing them into financial strain though not an official poverty statistic (02:57–03:51).
• Hidden Support & Unclaimed Benefits
  • Over £20 billion in benefits go unclaimed annually due to lack of accessible information or stigma in seeking help (07:12–08:09).
  • “Hidden help isn't help, it's just not there.” – Mark Game (07:45)

2. The Bread and Butter Thing: Mission & Operations

• Origin Story & Meaning of the Name
  • Started in 2015 by Mark and his wife Jane, both accountants. The term "bread and butter" stands for everyday essentials and reflects a movement to normalize support (09:17–10:03).
• Business Model
  • Redistributes surplus food via community-led food clubs—140,000 families across 145 clubs, supplied by ~100 food donors (farms, manufacturers, supermarkets) (13:18–13:36).
  • Each club is self-sustaining after initial seed funding: local authorities pay for first-year setup, after which the program’s operations are covered by nominal membership fees (£8.50 for three bags of food) (11:32–12:44).
• Community Hubs vs. Food Banks
  • No referrals or means-testing; open to all in a given area, preserving dignity and avoiding the stigma often associated with food banks (18:33–19:02).
  • Community volunteers handle local distribution and engagement, creating a sense of ownership and support.

3. The Role and Rebuilding of Community

• Purpose and Dignity
  • Reed and Game discuss the psychological struggles of poverty: the loss of dignity and purpose that can come with seeking help or falling into hardship (21:19–22:05).
  • Community hubs provide more than food—they rebuild social connections and self-esteem.
• Importance of Social Connection
  • Isolation is compared to smoking in its health risks (46:02–46:19).
  • “Building friendships and just not being as isolated on your own… social isolation is more dangerous than smoking.” – Mark Game (46:04)

4. Upskilling and Employment Pathways

• Challenges in Moving from Unemployment
  • Many individuals are generationally removed from the workforce and require confidence-building, not just job skills (34:21–37:41).
  • Example: Despite targeted employment programs, very few participants may transition directly to work due to lack of basic confidence and routine.
  • “We think everybody is ready to be employed and they're not ... it's the confidence.” – Mark Game (38:11)

5. Lessons for Business, Government, and Philanthropy

• Sustainability and Scale
  • Bread and Butter Thing aims to be self-sustaining, but has had to adopt a blended funding model due to inflation and cost-of-living pressures (50:23–53:43).
• Philanthropic Business Models
  • James Reed presses for companies to become "Philanthropy Companies" (PhilCos), channeling shares and profits into community benefit, bypassing overburdened governments (47:28–49:33).
• Call to Action
  • Local authorities, private donors, and companies are encouraged to sponsor new hubs, with £150k–£250k needed for initial setup (33:32–33:41).

6. Personal Journey: Mark Game’s Path

• Early Life
  • Grew up in a working-class, Irish Catholic family in Preston; overcame challenging circumstances and juvenile convictions in youth (23:20–24:11).
• Turning Point & Career
  • Returned to school at 22, eventually becoming an accountant, then moving into food logistics and social enterprise (26:22–29:08).
• Leadership and Management Philosophy
  • Values resilience, “can do” self-starters, and lean teams. Expects all team members to contribute at all levels—and the organization prides itself on never missing a club opening (31:02–32:25).

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Notable Quotes and Memorable Moments

• On In-Work Poverty:
  “You have citizens of the UK doing everything that is expected of them and yet they cannot afford to get by.” – Mark Game (07:12)

• On Stigma and Hidden Help:
  “Hidden help isn't help, it's just not there.” – Mark Game (07:45)

• On Community and Belonging:
  “Community hubs...are more than food—the community piece is huge...they feel ownership.” – Mark Game (19:34)

• On the Purpose of the Work:
  “It's fairness. It's inequalities that people face for no fault of their own. Even in the UK. That frustration that it's wrong... I feel like I, we can do something about it.” – Mark Game (57:04)

• On Recruiting and Team Building:
  "You can train anybody to do most things. If they've got the right attitude and the right determination..." – Mark Game (31:22)

• On Isolation vs. Community:
  “Social isolation is more dangerous than smoking.” – Mark Game (46:04)

• On Philanthropy Companies:
  "Companies should become philanthropy companies...the upsides are huge...in terms of business, but also in terms of the wider benefits." – James Reed (49:33)

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Key Timestamps

• 01:48 – Mark describes rise in working poverty and case study of professional family now struggling.
• 07:12 – Billions in unclaimed benefits; “Hidden help isn’t help.”
• 09:25 – Story behind the Bread and Butter Thing’s name and founding.
• 13:18–13:36 – Bread and Butter Thing’s scale: families, clubs, and food donors.
• 18:33–19:02 – Contrast with food banks: open access, focus on dignity.
• 21:19 – Discussion of dignity, purpose and the impact of work.
• 34:21–37:41 – Upskilling, generational unemployment, and challenges in employment programs.
• 39:17–41:49 – Importance of local confidence, the centrality of local community.
• 46:02–46:19 – Mark: “Social isolation is more dangerous than smoking.”
• 50:23–53:43 – Funding models and financial sustainability.
• 57:04 – What gets Mark up in the morning: fairness and tackling inequality.
• 58:11 – Five-year vision: regulation and systemization of food redistribution.

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Flow and Tone

The tone is personal, warm, and honest—with candid admissions by Mark Game about his origins and mistakes, and practical, actionable guidance from both guest and host. James Reed’s questioning is energetic and supportive, while Mark provides both gritty real-world stories of hardship and optimistic tales of community resilience.

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Final Takeaways

• In-work poverty is a growing, under-recognized crisis, affecting not only the unemployed but increasing numbers of professionals.
• Efforts like Bread and Butter Thing offer a replicable, sustainable model for food redistribution and community strengthening, emphasizing dignity and inclusion.
• Building genuine community—through food, volunteering, and shared initiatives—is essential for both economic and emotional well-being.
• A new partnership between business, community, and local government—centered on philanthropy and local leadership—may be the most promising path forward.

For more information or to get involved: breadandbutterthing.org
Philanthropy company resources: philco.org.uk

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Transcript

[A]

Welcome to All About Business with me, James Reed, the podcast that covers everything about business, management and leadership. Rising costs of living are forcing skilled workers towards poverty. So what can you do to support professionals struggling to put food on the table? On today's episode of All About Business, I have the great pleasure of welcoming Mark Gain, co founder of the Bread and Butter Thing, a wonderful organization that has given themselves the mission to unleash the power of food and ignite long lasting change in struggling neighbourhoods across the uk. The Bread and Butter Thing also helps people upskill to make sustainable long term changes to their situations. Today on All About Business, I'm really delighted to welcome Mark Game to our studio. Mark has come from Manchester today and he is the founder and the CEO of the Bread and Butter Thing, an award winning charity that helps make life more affordable for people by redistributing surplus food through community led food clubs. This is a subject that I'm really interested, Mark, in learning more about. You know, what is the situation, why are you doing this? And also your own journey to become a leader of a charity that obviously is doing really important work. I understand that you supply a quarter of a million meals a week to people principally in the north of England. What is the issue here? What is going on in the UK that has made this charity such an important provider of support for people? What's happening?

[B]

The stark truth is that wages don't pay as much as they did. Things that cost a hell of a lot more than they used to, and working families that are doing all the right things that government and society would want of them still can't make things stretch. So we have best part of 15 million people in poverty. But poverty is a really difficult thing to wrap your head around because it's not just a physical manifestation, it's emotional as well. And when you have people that don't, they're doing 50 hour weeks. So I, I do a podcast. As you know, James and I meet a lot of our members that we support and I see working families all the time. Last week I met a data analyst for the Ministry of Justice. His wife is a full time payroll clark. And they use bread and butter because at the end of last year they came out of a fixed term mortgage and their mortgage quadrupled overnight.

[A]

I see, so this is because interest rates have gone up.

[B]

Interest rates have gone up.

[A]

Suddenly they've got to pay a lot more.

[B]

Absolutely. So quadrupled is quadrupled.

[A]

So that's, that's tipped them into what you would call poverty.

[B]

What Would you call poverty? Because between them.

[A]

I'm not sure that's what I want to understand. You said 15 million people.

[B]

So that's kind of def. By kind of looking at 60% of the kind of average salaries sort of thing. But I see poverty differently. I think poverty in itself is. You take David that I just mentioned to you. He's not looking at an average salary. He's a data analyst and his wife's a professional as well.

[A]

So I know what data analysts. Yeah. And it's quite a lot.

[B]

Yeah, so.

[A]

So it's his outgoings that have caused him.

[B]

It's his outgoings that have crippled him. So. So would you say he's in poverty? Well, he wouldn't be a government statistic, but. But is he struggling to get by? Bloody hell. Yeah.

[A]

Right. Your principal customers or audience, what do you call the people who participate?

[B]

Members.

[A]

Members.

[B]

We call them all members. They're like co. Op.

[A]

Right. So your members, they're typically people with jobs.

[B]

Yeah. So half of our members are working families. Yeah, absolutely. The other half. Yes. There will be people on benefits or there will be retired people or people with disabilities.

[A]

Right. So let's start with the people in jobs. So this sort of in work poverty phenomena, you said work doesn't pay as it used to. It was the sort of implication. When did this start becoming apparent to you and what are the causes of it?

[B]

I think it started really to become apparent to us probably a year or so before COVID Right. So just before COVID things prices were putting the pressure on. Obviously austerity had come in with 2008 and that was hitting a lot of things. You were starting to see cutbacks in public sector. We were seeing a lot of people being made redundant and thousands of people from the public sector losing their jobs. Right.

[A]

But actually jobs went up during the coalition. I have to say that which is fascinating because I was there and I remember there were more vacancies and we. More people ended up employed at the end of the coalition than at the beginning.

[B]

And that's really interesting because that could be a separate podcast in itself, couldn't it?

[A]

Well, there's something's going on here, though, that's different from just unemployment, which is awful. I agree, it is.

[B]

And it's looking at the inflation costs, et cetera. The really interesting graph where you can see from the 80s to 2025, where you can actually see the graph of the salaries, the average salaries going up and up and up, and they kind of plateau in the noughties.

[A]

Yeah, real Wages stop rising.

[B]

Real wages did stop rising.

[A]

That's the productivity of people.

[B]

CPI and RPI didn't stop rising prices. Yes.

[A]

You mean. Yeah, wages stop. Well, that's, that's why real wages didn't keep going because prices kept going faster. That's the conundrum here.

[B]

That is absolutely the challenge. When you start to look at the cost of product, the cost of living going up and up, but your wages don't. That has to be acknowledged and I don't think it is sufficiently. I don't think there's enough support that is out there to help working families.

[A]

So one of the reasons I was keen to talk to you Mark, is that I'm concerned that this is going to become a bigger issue with new technologies potentially consuming jobs and more people finding themselves.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

In this difficult situation.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So is that a worry of yours? Is that, do you feel that your, the demand for your service is going to get, you know, how are you going to fulfill it? How are we going to prepare for this? What do we do? I as a society and you as an organization?

[B]

I think it's really interesting, James, that I would say from my perspective and what I see every day that we're already in a problem because whether they lose their jobs or not, people can't afford to get by. I would say there's a vast majority of people already in low paid work, gig economy type stuff that frankly isn't meeting the day to day needs. So we already have people that need support that are working and I don't know where the kind of AI revolution is going to go and whether we're going to look at universal basic income, et cetera. But that's going to cost billions that nobody wants to pay either.

[A]

No, I think that's the rub of it. I mean that seems to be the problem.

[B]

I agree. But at the same time the dichotomy that we see is you have citizens of the UK doing everything that is expected of them and yet they cannot afford to get by. And the help that government gives them. I don't think there's any way of kind of dressing this up. I think it's hidden. So if you think about a working family, the person that goes to work, they don't engage with the beneficiary system. So where do they find the information about what is available for them for free dentistry or free optometry, etc. There is no marketing out there, there is no central resource for them to find this help and support. So we say hidden help isn't help, it's just not there. And there are billions, literally over 20 billion every year of unclaimed benefits. That should be out there.

[A]

Really?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

That seems to me that could be solved by some sort of very well designed hub, digital hub or resource. Yeah, but that's not there at the moment.

[B]

That's not there right now. I'm sure that people listening, there will be people screaming, oh, well, there's citizens advice. There is, but they are completely oversubscribed and really struggling to do the great job they do already. Yeah, it's not enough if, like me.

[A]

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[B]

Did. Yeah.

[A]

In 2015, as I understand, what motivated you to do that at that particular time. And I have to ask, because I'm always intrigued by this. Why did you call it the Bread and Butter?

[B]

Ah, right. Okay. So my other half, Jane, started this with me. I guess you could say she. The brain's in the back of house and I'm the front of house.

[A]

Right.

[B]

And so where does the bread and butter thing come from? Bread and butter is your everyday essentials. So my dad always used to say, that's the bread and butter of things. And why is it a thing? I call it a thing because I saw it as a movement. Put it in a sentence. It's becoming a thing. The bread and butter thing is becoming a thing. So it's more of a conceptual thing to become a movement, recognizing the need for such provisions.

[A]

Okay, complicated. Your dad used to say this.

[B]

Yeah. He says, the bread and butter, that's my bread and butter. That's what I do every day. That's my bread and butter.

[A]

Right. So that's what. So that. And then you work with your wife.

[B]

Yep.

[A]

Jane, how do you divide up responsibilities?

[B]

That's a tricky one, isn't it.

[A]

As well.

[B]

Do you know what, we're both accountants.

[A]

By trade, so you're both accountants now this is interesting.

[B]

So. But Jane's a far better one than I am, so.

[A]

So she puts you.

[B]

I would say she's more forensic and more.

[A]

More forensic accountant.

[B]

She's much more forensic than I would ever be. And I would say I'm more of the corporate financier, so that's the way we roll. But that means that I can go out and do the deals, whereas she'll make sure that we're making every.

[A]

When you say go out and do the deals.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

What do you mean? I mean, what deals?

[B]

Grants. We've got to find funding to set up, so we.

[A]

So you're getting grants from donations? Yeah, that's the deal. Or do you get food as deals as well?

[B]

Absolutely.

[A]

Dealing with.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So talk me through a couple of deals you've done recently.

[B]

Okay. So we've had to look at. Local authorities are a good example.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Local authorities invite us in to come and open our bread and butter food clubs in their area. When they do, what happens is we will ask them for the first year's costs and the capital cost to set up. So the way we work is we set up a man in a van almost. So it's.

[A]

But you ask them to finance the first year's cost.

[B]

We do, yeah.

[A]

Because you wouldn't have thought of that if you weren't an accountant. I mean, I was inspired.

[B]

Well, this is a spin, James, because.

[A]

What we do is you can get.

[B]

Give us your first year of funding.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And I know we're a charity, but you'll never have to fund us again because it's. It's financially sustainable in your area then. Because the costs, the money that we charge our members for the food covers the running costs for that area.

[A]

So once it's established.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, exactly. So. So we can go into three and five year deals comfortably on one year funding.

[A]

Right. So I can see the appeal for the local authority.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So, like every good deal, it's good for both parties.

[B]

Absolutely.

[A]

So how many local authorities have you got signed up?

[B]

Wow. It's around 30, I guess.

[A]

And if there are any local authorities listening. How do they find you, Mark? Well, because I think they should.

[B]

I think they should too.

[A]

I mean, it sounds like a good thing. So, I mean, it's cost them one year to get it set up.

[B]

Yep.

[A]

And then you can run for three or five years at no cost to them.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Where'd they find. What is your URL?

[B]

Our easiest one is breadandbutterthing.org so that's the website. Get in touch, by all means.

[A]

And you have the capacity to keep growing, do you?

[B]

We do. So what we find as. So what's our barrier to growth? It's the food. So it's unlocking more surplus food. So we are the largest B2C food redistribution charity in the UK.

[A]

So you said quite a lot in that comment.

[B]

I did, didn't I?

[A]

In that sense. B to C, explain business to consumer customer.

[B]

So we basically take it end to end.

[A]

So you're taking it from a supermarket?

[B]

We'll take it from a supermarket. A farmer, a manufacturer and depending on what time of day we pick it up, it could be in the hands of the consumer that day.

[A]

And you do that?

[B]

We do that.

[A]

Right. And you said you're the biggest in the country.

[B]

Yeah. So we have 140,000 families registered with us. We operate through 145 food clubs across England, so as south as Maidstone and as north as Northumbria.

[A]

And how many food suppliers do you have?

[B]

Probably about a hundred. And again said there were.

[A]

Some of them are farmers.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[A]

So they were sending potatoes direct or whatever.

[B]

So a lot of outgrades. So farm A two kilo parsnip, maybe.

[A]

I'm trying to think what's A. Yeah. Why. Why particularly they're just huge or people don't want to buy them, is that you can chop them up and easily.

[B]

They're either too big or too small.

[A]

I see. Yeah.

[B]

It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter.

[A]

I wish I could grow one of them in the garden, but I think we've achieved that. That would win a prize, wouldn't it? So you get all those off cut.

[B]

Yeah, exactly. The outgrades and outgrades. Yeah. So they're either too big or too small. Or again, if there are things that are still on the tree. So top fruits like apples. We will do a deal with a farmer. Again, more deals where we'll try and make it cost neutral. So if they carry on picking. So sometimes, particularly post Brexit.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Farmers will keep hold of their laborers and they won't always have something to do. So they've got a bit of surplus labor. So then we'll kind of subsidize that and say we'll pay you a some towards that labor, but give us the fruit. Get them picking again for the kind of class twos or what isn't going to go to your mainstream customers.

[A]

Right. So you've got farmers. Then you had two other categories.

[B]

So manufacturers.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So.

[A]

So what happens there? What. What are they giving you?

[B]

Let's Just say there's a quality rejection from a retailer. So I don't know, there's been a, a problem with calibrating the label so it doesn't look pretty or, or so.

[A]

A whole lot of tins have the.

[B]

Labels on wrong or there's salt missing or an ingredient missing out of something. So there's lots of different reasons, but the main one tends to be around forecasting in and having food that's not got long enough life left to go on the shelf of a supermarket. Because if you think about it, let's just say for argument's sake, the manufacturer makes it with seven days life on it, then it's got to go to a distribution center and it's got to have a minimum shelf life on it to get into a distribution center and then the distribution center's got to get it to the supermarket itself.

[A]

Yeah, I'm thinking about that. But how the hell are you doing this? Because you've got to do all of that too to get it to your members.

[B]

We do, we're far more agile.

[A]

So what do you do? Put it in a van and drive. How does it work? How do you make it?

[B]

So we have three warehouses, but we also partner with a legit.

[A]

Where are they?

[B]

So one in Stoke, one in Manchester, one in Durham. A big shed, sorry, four. Four actually, because there's one in Spalding as well.

[A]

Right.

[B]

And they're not big sheds, they're about 20,000 square foot each one of them and They've got about 15 vans at each one of them. And what we do is get partner with third party logistics, they bring the food into us from the manufacturers, farmers, etc and then we'll look at making from whatever's inbound that day the best possible offer for our members to go out on our vans.

[A]

And so you create a parcel. Yeah, but is that what you do? Is that how it works? Just to describe people listening?

[B]

Yeah, so we understand. So what our offer is to the kind of member, the end user is three bags of food for 850. So a bag of chilled or frozen food.

[A]

Three bags of food for 850.

[B]

Yeah. So a bag of chilled or frozen food, a bag of fruit and veg and a bag of cupboard goods.

[A]

Right.

[B]

Typically about 35 to 40 quiz worth of food in there.

[A]

Right. So what that's dependent on you getting enough of each to come into your warehouses.

[B]

That's why we kind of do it that way again. Accountancy is that portfolio approach. Right. So you have enough suppliers, you get enough variety because each Supplier doesn't plan for surplus because a surplus is a mistake, effectively, isn't it?

[A]

Sure.

[B]

So you have to have enough people going up and down in your supply chain so that you've got an underlying constant feed.

[A]

So is that quite labor intensive for you to package them all up like that?

[B]

Well, what we do is we put it on the vans and then we go out to the. Each community project that we partner with to open our food clubs once a week.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And the community come and volunteer.

[A]

So that's done local.

[B]

So that's how we keep it.

[A]

Our cup. So each van has enough in it.

[B]

To do three packages and then we get community volunteers to come and help pack the bags.

[A]

So if you want to volunteer to work with you, go to the same place again.

[B]

Breadandbutter thing.org Very good.

[A]

Well, that sounds like a great thing to do. And you said that you got how many of these community.

[B]

So we've got 145 across the country.

[A]

Right.

[B]

And.

[A]

And you're trying to grow more. Assuming.

[B]

So what we're trying to. The first one, Moss side in Manchester.

[A]

Moss side, yeah. Is that where you live?

[B]

So I was introduced to Michelle and Elaine that ran the food bank, the Compassion Food bank. And Shebner, who worked in the back, taught me how to pack bags and she was fierce. I had three months of training with Shabner and did a lot of thinking in there and I started.

[A]

You were volunteering then yourself?

[B]

Yeah, yeah.

[A]

What a great story. So then you thought, I'm going to do. Well, I was done it slightly differently to a food bank, though, from the.

[B]

Sound of what you said. Absolutely.

[A]

So do you want to make. Just make clear what the difference is?

[B]

Yeah. So what's the difference mainly? Well, a. You don't refer to us. Anybody in the communities can come along. So we scrutinize the community and the area rather than the individual, because everybody gets a bit tired and bored and fed up of being. Having to demonstrate that they're poor.

[A]

Well, to see whether they qualify, so to speak. Yeah, yeah, I can imagine that's not.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So. So you just say, we're here.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

If you want to come, come. And it's 850 for three of these.

[B]

Yeah. And then it's one of those. So if you go back far enough. So I used. I used to run a company called Company Shop and which did commercial kind of boot rooms, staff shops selling cheap food to the food industry and whilst there kind of developed the first social supermarket in the UK as a subsidiary.

[A]

Of it and the first social super. What is that?

[B]

So that was a, that was means tested. If you're on universal credit, you had to show something. Yeah, exactly.

[A]

You could come in.

[B]

But that just got me thinking and that showed me how you can go beyond simply calories with such a model. Because everybody talks about food with this, James, but actually there's so much more because the community piece is huge. The fact that the volunteers come from the community and they feel like they're doing it for themselves gives them a pride, they feel ownership. And the members come along and they all get to know each other, they get to know their community. And then we have service providers that do come along, like welfare rights or public health or citizens advice, and they will also come along and piggyback our service. And that was almost accidental at first because they just noticed that there was a cluster of people in one place at one time, predictably every week. So they started to shape their services around us and then we started to recognize that and started to do more curation around it to see what each community needs.

[A]

These hubs are open one day a week, is that right? Yeah, but everyone knows when it is.

[B]

Everybody knows when it is. And again, it's on the website. We've got like a store, they're all.

[A]

Listed on the website.

[B]

There's a, there's a store locator on there, so probably postcode in and you'll be able to see if we're near.

[A]

You, the breadandbutter thing.org you got it good. No, I think, I think it's, it's good that we spread the word.

[B]

Indeed.

[A]

Big part of my desire to talk to you today, to understand this better and give other people the opportunity to learn about it because it's a great initiative. So the dignity people, this, this word, dignity, I, I heard you use it and I see and recognize it myself, the importance of work has in giving people dignity and purpose in life.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

You'Ve obviously come to that from a different angle in a sense because you're sort of looking at it from how you run your community hubs rather than providing jobs. Do you think that's becoming more of an issue in society generally, that it's harder for people to hold on to their dignity?

[B]

I think you found the other word that's hard as well. Purpose.

[A]

Yes, I, I think I'm worried about this.

[B]

Yeah, I, I've hear. I mean, I'm down in London with you today. We're going to Westminster after this and there are people in Westminster that say community is lost. And I. I frankly don't believe that at all.

[A]

Well, you don't believe it because you see it in your sense.

[B]

Exactly. Yeah.

[A]

You're there with the people. And I think people need to get out of Westminster more, frankly, more, and sit in businesses, sit in organizations like yours, talk to people and see actually what's going on. Because, I mean, they don't seem to be particularly well tuned in, do they, on that issue?

[B]

No, they don't.

[A]

Being an example.

[B]

Yeah, it's a great example. And it. And we see every day, and that's what we celebrate on our podcast, so.

[A]

Celebrating community.

[B]

Yeah. And everyday people.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Just. There's some unbelievable people that. Doing unbelievable things despite their hardships.

[A]

Yeah. Well, that's inspiring, isn't it?

[B]

Yeah. And that just. It feels like a privilege to be able to just go and chat to him.

[A]

You said, you said to me earlier, and I, I hope I'm not putting you on the spot that you. You had a sort of mischievous youth or if that's the right word. And then. And then I'm interested because then you became an accountant.

[B]

Yeah, yeah.

[A]

And now you're running this, I would say, remarkable organization that's bringing people together and doing good work for the community. Can you just tell me a little bit about your own journey? Because I'm intrigued, Mark, and you're laughing. I want to know more. And I. I think there's a story to be had here. Yeah.

[B]

Okay. Irish Catholic family, born in Preston on a council estate. Youngest of four lads.

[A]

Right.

[B]

We were pretty feral as kids.

[A]

Right. Did your parents work?

[B]

Yeah, dad worked full time back in the day at Danish Bacon.

[A]

Right.

[B]

But.

[A]

So he was making bacon.

[B]

Yeah. And I, you know, Mum didn't work when. When she got all four of us because obviously I was the last one around. She wasn't working by that point, but four brothers.

[A]

And you were four brothers. You were the youngest, so you must be pretty tough.

[B]

I got shouty.

[A]

I don't know what your big brothers are like, but you must be pretty resilient.

[B]

Yeah, so, yeah, we, we had a bit of fun, but, yeah, so, yeah, I. The reason I was saying, a bit of a rogue. We, We. We did do some stuff and I did end up with some juvenile convictions, etc.

[A]

Right.

[B]

So I was caught joyrided.

[A]

Right.

[B]

Took a lamppost off a street corner at doing six.

[A]

How old were you when you're doing that?

[B]

Fifteen.

[A]

So. Fifteen.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Right.

[B]

Yeah. I was lucky. I was. I was very lucky.

[A]

You could have killed yourself or other people.

[B]

Well, yeah, I was Going to say I was lucky I didn't serve time for it.

[A]

Right, well that too. Well, yeah. So luckily none of those things came to pass.

[B]

Exactly. And again, time.

[A]

There's a lot of luck involved in life though, isn't there? Look back on that.

[B]

And you couldn't agree more because if you think about it, James, if I'd have done it post 16, I. I'd have probably had a criminal record that would have affected me and would not have got allowed me to become an accountant and qualify etc.

[A]

So how did you go from joy riding in Preston to becoming an accountant? I mean that's the next step I'm interested in. Did your mother say you saw yourself out someone else?

[B]

No. It's funny, I don't. I. There was like a little voice in my head, stop screwing around sort of thing in my early 20s.

[A]

I think one of your personalities told you don't do that anymore, do something else.

[B]

Get a grip. So it's interesting, gain of age, you know.

[A]

What age were you then?

[B]

Probably 22ish.

[A]

Right. And I think a lot of young men grow up in their 20s, I think.

[B]

So I do think that, that there's a truth to that. But it, but I think school wasn't great. Mum and dad weren't educated so they didn't really understand the value of education either. So they didn't necessarily support. So youngest of four lads going to the same kind of Catholic comp as I get through the door. First words from the forum. Teacher. God, not another game.

[A]

All right.

[B]

It just didn't go well.

[A]

That's not fair, is it? I mean reputation's been made by your older brothers. That's not fair, is it? I've been. But anyway. Okay. But your name is good for. Oh God, not another game. It makes it a good quote. So. So that's not a good sign.

[B]

It didn't help really, did it? So, so I, you know, I, I, I, I came out of school without. With very few levels. Very.

[A]

How many of them? I asked.

[B]

Four.

[A]

Four.

[B]

And one of them was a C. Right. So I, I think the only thing I like is the fact that I did. I actually got a B in physics O level without studying whatsoever. I just liked physics.

[A]

Did you get A level in mathematics?

[B]

I did.

[A]

So that helps for the accounting.

[B]

And then I went on to get an A and A level mass at night school and then realized that I like maths and I like understanding numbers and started.

[A]

You went to night school after you left school. So this is that further education. So this is really important. So what, so this is. This voice prompted you, what, 22 to do?

[B]

Yeah, yeah. Because. No, no, I went out to get a job at 16 and just spend money, burn money, go and enjoy life.

[A]

And that's what you did?

[B]

And that's what I did. And yeah, so, so what, so what.

[A]

Age you go to night school?

[B]

It's that. It's that little guy at 22 or whatever. Just come on time. It's time. And then I.

[A]

So what sort of jobs were you doing between 16 and 22?

[B]

So. So dad had a business. Dad had a frozen food business.

[A]

Oh. So that's interesting.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Connection.

[B]

Yeah, it's a difficult one because he actually had two businesses and they both failed and they. You. You can look at it and wonder whether or not that's something that drove me into accountancy as well, because I could actually happening in there.

[A]

Right.

[B]

But you can also look at market conditions because he was definitely in the 80s when the supermarkets were really coming into their own and the high street stores were somewhat oppressed by them. And that. That change in market, he didn't adapt to.

[A]

Right.

[B]

And I. I think that's what to see, though. It's hard to watch. Yeah, it is because he suffered with that and he had a lot of kind of stress and heart conditions in and out of hospital during that time. So it's a tough watch. But yeah, so that's kind of where I was. But frankly took the mickey when I was working for him because I could.

[A]

Right. He didn't fire you, though.

[B]

No, he should have.

[A]

Okay, well, leave it there. You've got a nice dad. So. So then you did the accounting and.

[B]

So what I did with the accounting, I went on to the ACCA route. And because I was like over 22 at this time, they had a mature student route, so I took that, but then got a job with an accountancy firm when I'd done the foundation stage of acca, recognized how far I was behind others, so decided I was just going to do them every six months. So it suddenly became very driven.

[A]

Right.

[B]

I went, right, I'm going to leapfrog some of these people that are younger than me that are doing the same exams, because actually, I need to play catch up now.

[A]

Right, so. And you managed to do that and then. And then what did you do when you qualified?

[B]

So qualified, Did a bit of audit, did a bit of corporate finance, but.

[A]

They'Re still in Preston.

[B]

No, Lancashire. Lancashire. And then started to do business planning. So I found that one of the partners where I Was working, was doing consultancy for helping people to develop their SMEs in a. In a preparation for exit sale, float, whatever. And I found I was really quite capable at that and started to help develop management teams for exits and sales and then went on from there to do it with a couple of others. We set up our own practice and one of my first clients.

[A]

Building management teams.

[B]

Building management teams, grooming businesses for sale.

[A]

This is, this is an unexpected turn of events, but I want to ask you what's a couple of key things you want to do to build a management team if you want sell a business? Because this is an added bonus.

[B]

Yeah. Well, I guess for me the key thing that we always talked about is making sure that the management know which buttons to press to actually deliver. Because so many teams say we need a budget and the budget just means numbers and a budget to me always means you need an operational Gantt chart to go with it. What are going to be the triggers to actually make that happen? When you say it's going to happen and I don't know why but so many times that's a blind spot. It's like we're not reaching budget. Well, explain why. Oh, well, we haven't thought about this. This.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And the operations and actions that need to go with it don't seem to get documented as they. They ought. Everyone thinks, oh well if we just kind of do that and we go 3% or whatever and we put a marketing plan behind it.

[A]

Useful.

[B]

No, it's got to have.

[A]

It sounds like you're applying that knowledge in what you're doing now.

[B]

Yeah, very much. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

[A]

Because I mean you're running a real logistics operation here.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Sounds complex and impressive. You're laughing. It must be quite hard.

[B]

There's a lot of place to spin.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

But there's a good team there and I think that's the secret sauce.

[A]

There's a good team there.

[B]

Yeah. So depends on what you.

[A]

What do you look for in your team?

[B]

That positive self starting can do philosophy. You can train anybody to do most things. I think if they've got the right attitude and the right determination then you.

[A]

Get the right team can do positive self starting philosophy regardless of the role you're looking for that in the people who join you.

[B]

Yep.

[A]

Because they're people who get stuff done. I guess.

[B]

Got anyone?

[A]

Right. Well, that's good. That's good advice.

[B]

You can imagine Jane and I, we, we run it lean. We say we don't have to. Yeah. And everybody that comes, even within senior positions it's like we expect you to roll your sleeves up and crack on. Don't expect your team to do it. And we've kind of got this thing, we're like the pony express. We have never ever missed opening a food club, ever. And if that means I've got to be on the vans day, that's fine, we'll do that. And everybody is expected to do that. So we all dig in when needed.

[A]

Right. When's your next opening?

[B]

Next opening of a hub.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So we are opening. Well, I, I'm focusing on Whitby at the moment. We're opening in the seaside town of Whitby. Yeah. So that should be early September. I mean, we've got a couple of others that were kind of infilling around our, our regions at the moment, so in Greater Manchester and places.

[A]

But how do you choose? So you've chosen Whitby as the next one.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

What do you look for? How do you do that?

[B]

Funding can drive it. So the local authority. Yeah, exactly. So if a local authority or a private kind of philanthropist or whatever wants to get involved and do some legacy.

[A]

Piece, how much did it cost to set one up then?

[B]

How much? You got.

[A]

A good negotiator, but I'm not going to fall for it. Do you not want to say it?

[B]

It varies. It varies regionally because it depends on how far away we are from distribution centers, whether we have to DO contracts with third party logistics to actually come to your area, etc.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So I'll give you a ballpark. It's anywhere between 150 and 250.

[A]

Hundreds of thousands.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So up to a quarter of a million.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

But once it's set up, it runs. So if anyone listening wants to set up up and support one of these.

[B]

Yeah, Definitely.

[A]

Please do. 150 to 250.

[B]

I know it sounds a lot, you.

[A]

Know, but lots of businesses are located in neighborhoods.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Where they could usefully do this actually. I mean, if companies got behind this.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

That would be great, wouldn't it?

[B]

Wouldn't it?

[A]

I think so, yeah. Okay. So you, you also mentioned, Mark, that you work with people who are out of work, unemployed people or. That's the right way of describing it. And I think you do some work around skills and helping people support people into it, which is something we do well at Reed. And I'm just interested in what you're doing and how you get on with it.

[B]

So a number, quite a lot of people that come to us that are unemployed are quite away from employment, I would say. So we do work with them on things like confidence. And so, for example, today, again, we've got something that's called a living library. So what we've got is a theater company that has been working with a dozen of our members to give them the confidence to be able to stand up in Westminster today and tell their story.

[A]

Wow. So you're going to stand up in Parliament and tell your story. I mean, that's a lot of. That's quite a big boost.

[B]

So.

[A]

I mean.

[B]

Exactly.

[A]

Many of us would find that challenging.

[B]

Yeah. We're not standing them on a podium and just saying, listen to me.

[A]

What.

[B]

What we've got is we've got one of the rooms in Westminster and it'll be like a networking event and.

[A]

But they're going to share their experience.

[B]

Exactly. And it gives them confidence to go and network, introduce themselves and these are skills that they will need to be able to get to interview, etc.

[A]

Sure.

[B]

So we. We think that. That when. When you look at people that are unemployed, a lot of the time people miss the trait that actually they're so far away from employment that they need a lot of training and development to actually get to that point to be ready to be employed.

[A]

So when you say far away from. Is that because they've never worked or they have other issues?

[B]

So I'll go back to the kind of social supermarket. So we did a pilot and it was in Barnsley where we tried to train up 20 people to get jobs. We had a local employer that said, I've got. Got enough jobs to employ all of them. So it was a large employer, what sort of business? It was in the food industry.

[A]

Right.

[B]

So it was. It was a nice link. And so we started with 20 and we went through the process of getting them to interview and the day of the interview, half of them turned up and then six of them got offers and on the day that they should have been starting work, and we were in touch with them all the time.

[A]

You started with 2010, got to the interview and six got offers, offers, two.

[B]

Turned up on the first day.

[A]

Right.

[B]

And one walked out that day.

[A]

So you had a 5% success rate. Yeah, yeah, that's quite so. So how did you compute that? So what did you do with that? That's quite hard, isn't it?

[B]

You got. Yeah. You got to reflect. Yeah.

[A]

So what did you do with that information?

[B]

But.

[A]

Well, we learned from failures.

[B]

Yeah. And this is why we are where we are now, James, with looking at this and looking at those confidence levels first we went too fast, too, too soon. These were people that had generational unemployment, didn't even have a clock in the house. So don't work to a rhythm. School was what regulated the household. So it's. You have to start understanding that there are basic life admin and skills that sometimes people need support with to help them feel confident with alternative rhythms.

[A]

But, I mean, some people listening might think, well, these people didn't want a job in the first place, really. You know, they just.

[B]

And you're just trying to make me swear.

[A]

This is a. This is a, you know, widely held view.

[B]

You. Yeah.

[A]

So what? Say that again. Why?

[B]

It's bollocks. I've never met somebody like that.

[A]

You've never met.

[B]

No.

[A]

So. So what's the issue then? Why did you go from 20 to 1?

[B]

So I. I mean, I'll give you another example.

[A]

How do we get 20 to 20?

[B]

Keep saying it is the confidence. And this is why we invest in these theater companies and. And such things, so that people can build their skills and confidence because we think everybody is ready to be employed and they're not.

[A]

Why do people have. So what's happened to the confidence of people?

[B]

So that's. That I could not explain.

[A]

I think it's gone down.

[B]

I do. Yeah.

[A]

I've wondered that. You're telling me. I mean, you're much closer to this.

[B]

Yeah. So. So why is it.

[A]

Why'd you say that?

[B]

So we. One of the drivers that we recruited for our vans, she was brilliant in her community. She was one of the hub leaders that turned up every weekend, so confident in her community. And I offered her a job and she took it. And first week she was out, she was great. Second week she went back home one night and rang me and said, I can't do it anymore. It's just killing me, I'm too stressed. And it. We took her out of a bubble. She was confident in her bubble. And I hadn't thought about it, again, to say, actually, this is a bigger, wider world with new stakeholders and new rules.

[A]

Right.

[B]

That we didn't take the time to actually help and support her through.

[A]

So would that have been different in the past? Would have been two people in the van?

[B]

No, we've always had just one.

[A]

But I was just thinking years ago. Yeah, Deliveries and things.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[A]

The people work together, maybe more. I'm just thinking, what would give, you know, someone the confidence? Hey, come along. It's fine, you know, I've done this before or, you know, this sort of.

[B]

And there is A good camaraderie because they. Because it. Because they're on the van on their own, but only for a short while. Then they're in the hub with the community. Volunteers who are brilliant, are really supportive and back at the warehouse they've got the rest of the team. Yeah. So there's a. But all of it was outside of the community. And the kind of normality, should we say, so the.

[A]

This word community, I think may well be very connected to confidence.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

If someone feels part of something and they feel more confident.

[B]

I'd agree.

[A]

You'd agree with that. And. But you said earlier that the sort of view in Westminster is there is no community or some parts of us. And you were very strongly opposed to that suggestion. So there is still a community, but it's not delivering confidence in the way that it used to. Is that. So what's going on?

[B]

And I suppose that. Where do people go nowadays, James. Because it used to be church. What brings community together? And that's one of the things that we like because we bring community together. But what else does nowadays? That's the question, I feel, because there's. We need reasons to connect.

[A]

Yeah. I think that's really interesting because if you went to church, you'd meet people you didn't normally meet. You might see in a shop or. And say hello to them and you feel connected to people you wouldn't normally be.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Connected to.

[B]

But what replaces that?

[A]

Well, you're not answering that question.

[B]

No.

[A]

Apart from what you're doing.

[B]

Exactly.

[A]

And maybe what other organizations.

[B]

So. But when you ask me about where. Where is the kind of confidence in the communities, etc. I think it's. Communities get confidence when they know each other and come together and meet each other, so that they're more familiar. So we see it. So an academic that we work with quite often, Dr. Megan Blake up at Sheffield Uni, she will tell you that actually there are. There's statistical evidence to show that when you bring communities together through things like food clubs, even things like policing and crime go down. Because actually it's not just about visibility, it's about knowing each other.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

Yeah. So policing in itself, community policing works effectively because of the visibility, but actually, if your community know each other better, then.

[A]

So. So, so making an effort to get to know.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Each other is your message here, really.

[B]

Absolutely. And. And there need to be. So I. For a long time I was a trustee of Food Cycle and they do community meals.

[A]

Right.

[B]

So another great way of bringing people together. Food is always a great Connector that way. It's almost like the glue that can always bring us together. Whereas I guess religion used to be the thing, but I, I think food is a good way of doing that nowadays.

[A]

Do you have any other ideas about how to rebuild or create community? Well, sports maybe, I don't know.

[B]

Sports is a good show. Yeah.

[A]

In hobbies and interest clubs. I don't know.

[B]

Yeah, Youth clubs, it's who funds them. Yeah, I, I suppose there's a lack of investment in community, so we see quite a lot. But we, we've seen some really good local authorities that have change things as well. So give me an example. Hartlepool. Hartlepool approached us to come and open food clubs in their area. Okay. And they were converting some libraries and some council owned spaces into community hubs and they wanted bread and butter to go in to attract football from the communities. So one of the, so the central hub that they had had, they put stuff in there for. There was like a, a graphic design suite that the teenagers could come in and learn digital skills or there was a children's library full of nice picture books and craft center and then there was a kind of occupational health section for the elderly where they were showing them kind of hoists and kind of those bath where you walk in and fill it up and all, all this sort of stuff. They, they really thought about what they were putting in there as well as a cafe obviously. But they, they needed a reason for people to come and we were going to give them that catalyst to come and it's just.

[A]

They could come to you and get a bargain.

[B]

Yeah, exactly.

[A]

They did, did they?

[B]

They did, yeah.

[A]

So that made the rest of it sort of fall into place.

[B]

Exactly, yeah.

[A]

They had the vision to see that. That was.

[B]

Yes. So.

[A]

So you're in a way you, you can be the catalyst of creating a community hub. Yeah, that, yeah. But you're only one day a week though. What happens?

[B]

Well, it doesn't matter because what you do, once you start, once you've engaged and you can see the community coming through the door, then you can talk to them right. Face to face when they're there getting the bags and say, do you know tomorrow's knit and natter or toddler group or whatever, you know, the best ones we've seen, they've actually had whiteboards at the door, as on the whiteboard, it's like this week's activities and bang, bang, bang, really simple stuff like that. Gets people talking, gets people interested.

[A]

There's no reason why every local authority in the country couldn't do that.

[B]

Agreed.

[A]

And it wouldn't be very high cost because they've all got premises that are underutilized or libraries or whatever. Yeah, I'm getting behind you here. I think this is good. This is good. I mean, I think. Because I really feel an absence of community or. Or I think that's something people really crave. They want that.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And. And so.

[B]

And I would say I don't feel the same, James. So you should come to one of our hubs and then you wouldn't. You would be inspired.

[A]

Yeah. No, but it's. It's interesting. I mean, I suppose I live in central London and.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

I mean, I've got friends and neighbors, but it's the. It's not quite the same as what you're describing.

[B]

No, I mean.

[A]

I mean, there is a local church. I go to it occasionally, but it's not. It's not like a regular thing for the whole community.

[B]

Yeah. Whereas where we go now, people know the neighbors well.

[A]

Right.

[B]

And it makes a difference. Yeah, for so many reasons. You know, building friendships and just not being as isolated on your own. It's. It's important. You know, social isolation is more dangerous than smoking.

[A]

Right.

[B]

So, yeah, if you. So if you don't go out and you isolate yourself, it's like smoking 20 a day.

[A]

Is that the. What's the evidence for this?

[B]

There's good medical evidence.

[A]

The medical consequences are the same.

[B]

There are medical consequences for this.

[A]

Right. So that's interesting. Well, yeah, so. So, I mean, there are lots of programs to help people stop smoking. Maybe there should be some to help people sort of connect in other ways.

[B]

Exactly.

[A]

If that's a medical benefit. So what's next for the bread and butter thing and for you?

[B]

So I. I think the big one for us at the moment, we are trying to convince local authorities and government. He says, rolling his eyes, that food clubs or.

[A]

He said rolling his eyes. Well, because this is a difficult process or you find it frustrating.

[B]

Slow process. So why convincing government that. Actually, the food clubs and community cohesion.

[A]

What are the pushbacks then?

[B]

I.

[A]

People don't need food clubs. Community doesn't matter. I mean, I don't think they're that.

[B]

But I, I don't think. Think.

[A]

Is it just inertia or what is it?

[B]

I. I think there's way too many things for them to sort out, and we're not high enough on the agenda.

[A]

I'm interested in creating a movement, too. It's about philanthropy, companies. And these are companies that have at least 10 of their shareholding held by Foundation.

[B]

Interesting.

[A]

Ours is 1, curiously. It's got.18 of our shares are held by the Reed foundation. And I'm interested in it because I want other companies to do the same because it's enabled us to do a lot philanthropically through our foundation because the company's paying dividends into it. So if more businesses or all businesses became philanthropy companies or Phil Cos, and The definition is 10 or more shares in the foundation, they could support all sorts of initiatives like this and you don't need government at all. And, and, and that's because I feel sorry for these politicians in a way. They're always being asked to step up and I feel sorry for the taxpayer too. But you know, the businesses could actually do that.

[B]

It's a tricky one, isn't it? But David, the guy that's the data analyst that I was telling you about earlier, he, I asked him about what could government do to help and he said, well, actually I think it's beyond governments nowadays and I think the corporates have got to step up, up. So I think there's something in that as well.

[A]

Well, that's interesting. Me, I think, Very interesting because I'm, I'm interested in philanthropy companies or Phil cos I'm writing a book about this right now that's coming out in the autumn called Karma Capitalism. The Mission to Change the DNA of Business. And the, the idea is that companies should become philanthropy companies where at least 10 of their shares are held by a charitable foundation. And in that way, you know, the people who work in the company work half a day or more for a charity and money from the company in terms of dividends paid out can be recycled into community type endeavors like yours in the areas they operate. Or it's other ways that the trustees of their foundation see fit. And this is a model we have at Reed because 18% of our shares are held by a charitable foundation. So we say one day a week we work for charity and the proceeds of the dividends have been used to support big give, to raise money for thousands of other charities and to support organizations like yours who are seeking to do things in communities where people live and work.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So, you know, I think it's, it's an opportunity to go beyond government and say, let's, let's sort this out ourselves. You know, companies can become philanthropy companies, communities can come together and we can do this between us business and, and communities. And I think we should really try and do that. So I am urging more people to Become philanthropy companies. And you can look that up on philco.org.uk because I mean it's not hard to do. And I think the upsides are huge. They have been for us both in terms of business but also in terms of the wider benefits that you can bring to, to other organizations and people. So there's something beyond government here I.

[B]

Think, I think there is.

[A]

And yours sounds like, I mean the logistics are obviously complex but yours sounds quite sustainable. Your model, once you've got it going.

[B]

Yeah. So we, we've. So we always aspire to be self funding. Typical startup type scenario in your head. Financially you get that seed funding, you get to critical mass and the kind of day to day activities will cover the core costs as well as everything else. And we've had to concede and accept for now at least a blended model because we didn't want to pass on all the cost of living pressures that were suffering to our members.

[A]

No.

[B]

So we've looked for the past couple of years at price rises because we've been impacted with them in many different ways and we've chosen not to but to do that as well. We've had to kind of reflect and recognize that means that it's going to further delay when we'll ever become financially sustainable. And it's, it's hard for us because we're not, we, we don't see ourselves as a charity. We, we feel that our members are our customers and we do the best professional job that we can. And if we do the best we can and give them the best customer service possible, all the social impact that we have is just a natural byproduct. So do the best job you can. Don't focus on the value because that will come if you do the right thing.

[A]

Right. So when you say to become sustainable. So you're, you're relying on other people's funding donations as well as the sales of the.

[B]

Exactly. Yes.

[A]

Yeah. So you, you want to get to a situation where you're not dependent on that.

[B]

Exactly. So we're, we're kind of. So we, we've. We fund 2/3 of our own overheads but now we're getting to a point where we need a substantial growth to be able to continue that. So again accountant talking. So each van is profitable. Do you call yourself profitable when you're a charitable organization?

[A]

I know what you mean.

[B]

Yeah, yeah.

[A]

You have to be. To be sustained.

[B]

Exactly right. And then pre covered each region was profitable post Covid. They're not. There's each. What happened There then cost of living pressures.

[A]

Just the prices. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Which is what's affecting everyone.

[B]

Everyone. Yeah. But now we've got to get that back. And it's slowly coming back where we're getting kind of regional profits again and we're focusing harder on that. But then how many regions do we need to cover? Core costs has gone up, clearly, because actually there's not enough profit in each pocket now to cover the core. So we were pushing out further and further when we will become financially sustainable.

[A]

So you. So you need to become larger to become financially sustainable.

[B]

Curious.

[A]

Yeah, that's the model. More scale.

[B]

As I say, this is like classic startups right in anywhere, like an AIM listing or something like that. It's that proof of concept and getting to a point where eventually you have the product that becomes the cash cow and kind of covers all the costs.

[A]

Yeah, it's very interesting, me. I mean, you said we don't like, think of ourselves as a charity. You're using sort of very obvious business language and techniques here to run the organization. I find that very reassuring, actually. And I think people in business listening would think that too, because I think there's. It might be completely misconceived, but there's a sense that maybe some charities don't apply those disciplines in their operational activities. But you clearly do, and you've made it a focus.

[B]

We have. And we don't traditionally recruit out of the third sector either, so we, we look for commercial people and professional people. And I'm not saying that there aren't commercial or professional people within the third sector, but we're just not looking for them. We're not. Well, we're looking for kind of hungry people that are willing to roll the sleeves up and crack on with us and do the best professional job possible. And everybody that comes, they all say, oh, you know, I want to give back, and shared values and all the rest of it. And we say, that's fine, but you're going to work hard.

[A]

Right? So any of them walk out at that point someday.

[B]

So. So our drivers, you know, I. I've spent many a year having the final interview with our drivers and saying to them, I know it looks great. I know you've done a trial day, I know that the sun was shining, but when it's 3 degrees in horizontal rain, you've still got to do this. And when you wake up at six in the morning and you can see that it's snowing or the M60 shot, you've still got to come in and you've still got to do the do. And it's hard and you'll be knackered and cold and uncomfortable. Please think about that before you come to us. And some of the guys talk about it as boot camp. The first six weeks, they say it's like boot camp.

[A]

It almost reminded me of Shackleton's job ad, you know, going to the South Pole when you're describing that. But it's funny, you've got lots of people queuing up.

[B]

Again, it's management of expectations. Right. It's just like you've got to have the right.

[A]

What I'm hearing, when you say. Say that it's not all the difficulties or adversities you might have driving around the M60. I'm hearing this is important, what we're doing and we need to deliver for our members, because it matters.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And I think that's very motivational, actually, and that that would make me want to sign up. So you're looking for people, I suppose, who are engaged in that mission.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Well, I think it's wonderful what you're doing and I'd like to commend people to support you if we. If we can, in all sorts of ways, because it sounds like there are a number, whether it's getting involved in the community or whether it's supporting you financially or as a local authority, opening a new harbour.

[B]

It's becoming a thing, James.

[A]

Yeah, becoming a thing. And. Yeah. And I. I wish you continued to success with the thing and, and, and, and I'd like to invite you back in the future to see how it's progressed.

[B]

I'll be happy to come back.

[A]

Thank you for coming in to talk to me today, Mark. I found that fascinating. Now, I've got a couple of questions for you that I always ask at the end.

[B]

Yeah. Yep.

[A]

Jane might have tipped you off.

[B]

I've listened to you, James. I know what's coming.

[A]

So. Yeah, well, the first question I like to ask at the end is related to the poster on the wall and it's an important theme for me is what gets you up on a Monday morning, Mark.

[B]

So I. I've listened to your podcast and I've listened to some of the answers and I've tried to think about this long and hard because one of the things that. So you asked me earlier about why did Jane and I started this, and it's fairness, it's inequalities that people can face for no fault of their own, even in the uk. Right. And that frustration that it's wrong And I feel like I, we can do something about it that drives me to get up on a Monday morning.

[A]

So you.

[B]

It's almost like an agitation in my head.

[A]

Yeah. I mean people don't like unfairness.

[B]

No.

[A]

But you're feeling it really sort of strongly and that gets you up very much to go and do something about it.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

All right, that's, that's. I can see that in your eyes and I believe you absolutely. And then the next question is from my interview book, why you. 101 interview questions you'll never fear again. And it's one of the fateful 15 as it's called is where do you see yourself in five years time? Mark?

[B]

So I did think about this as well. I. So one of the things that we do, obviously that isn't community based is the food redistribution piece. And I think the food redistribution sector needs fixing somehow. It's, it's not fractured, but there's no kind of. It's not seen as a market sector. It's not seen as having any regulatory bodies or anything like this. And I think that needs fixing somehow because as much as we do all this great work and we rescue all this food from going to waste, et cetera, everything's done on a handshake and that's not sustainable. And the redistribution sector itself needs to be able to have service contracts and tender processes and fair codes of practice. And it all sounds really dull, but actually this is about maturing a sector and having it recognized. And I think I want to go into that space because.

[A]

Well, you'd like to lead that endeavor.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that's where I see. I'm going to.

[A]

Well, that sounds wonderful. I wish you every success with that.

[B]

Thank you.

[A]

Thank you very much for coming to talk to me.

[B]

It's a pleasure.

[A]

Thank you, Mark, for joining me on All About Business. I'm your host, James Reid, chairman and CEO of Reed, a family run recruitment and philanthropy company. If you'd like to find out more about Reid, Mark game, the bread and butter thing. All links are in the show notes. See you next time. It.