A recent trip to the supermarket was eye-opening says one single mum
Colette Lewis-Todd(Image: Sean Hansford | Manchester Evening News)
For Colette Lewis-Todd, it was a recent trip to the supermarket that really drove home the cost of living crisis. Colette’s 14 year-son came home with a list of six items he needed for his Food Technology class at school.
“I spent £6.90 on about six items in Sainsbury’s. And that was just for one meal” she said. ” It really shocked me.”
For 47-year-old Colette, who lives in Sale, managing her household finances became much more of a challenge when she separated from her husband.
“It’s hard when you are by yourself, because you don’t have that safety net of another person’s income” she said. “The financial buck stops with you.”
It was at that point that Colette discovered one of the dozens of food clubs run by food charity, The Bread and Butter Thing (TBBT).
Colette picking up her shopping(Image: Sean Hansford | Manchester Evening News)
“I was chatting to a friend of mine. We would discuss the fact that me and my then-husband were in the throes of separating and that I was a bit concerned about how I would manage financially, and she said ‘you need to check out this place.’
“So I looked into it, and that’s when I started using it.”
Their mobile food clubs provide low cost weekly shops, made up of ‘surplus’ food from supermarkets and high-street retailers. This can be goods they have too much of, or which has damaged packaging, for example.
Colette says each Monday she gets a text message asking if she wants to be on the list for that week. “I’ve never had a time when they’ve said that no or there’s too many people or anything” she says.
Colette gets three bags for £8.50(Image: Sean Hansford | Manchester Evening News)
She then goes to The Hub, a community centre in Altrincham, to pick up her three bags of shopping.
“There are lots of familiar faces because a lot of people come the same day, week in, week out, and you have a little chat with the people I’ve got to know.”
For £8.50 Colette gets a bag of fruit and veg, a bag of larder goods and a bag of refrigerated goods.
“It’s not always close to the best before date. Some of it has a really long shelf life” she says. “You just have to go through it and work out what needs using first. I try and put what I can in the freezer.
“If some of the veggies are looking like they need to be used, I make a soup, that kind of thing, or stew up some apples or make a berry compote or something like that and stick it in the freezer for another time.
Colette says she can’t imagine going back to using regular supermarkets for her weekly shop(Image: Sean Hansford | Manchester Evening News)
“You never know what you’re going to get” she continues. “You know it’s a bag of fruit veg, so that’s safe, but you don’t know what fruit and veg. And the larder bag could be anything, We’ve had all sorts of stuff.
“We’re quite a meaty household, but sometimes we get quite a lot of plant based stuff. But it’s been really eye-opening because a lot of that stuff is cheaper than buying meat, so it’s been good to try that.”
“Sometimes I’ll need to go out and get some butter or bread or whatever, but I do find that it’s odd bits here and there rather than having to do a big weekly shop” she adds.
The Bread and Butter Thing have claimed there is a ‘hidden hunger crisis’ among working families, with millions across the country ‘drowning in the cost of living crisis.’
And Colette says not having to worry about a whopping weekly shopping bill has made a ‘big difference.’
Colette, who has a music degree, is a singer and performer who has done lots of theatre touring in the past.
Colette says the nature of her work means it can be ‘difficult’ to manage weekly finances(Image: Sean Hansford | Manchester Evening News)
She now teaches music, two and a half days a week, but also does part-time domiciliary care-work to supplement her income.
She says the ‘sporadic’ and ‘unpredictable’ nature of her teaching work means that ‘I don’t know from one month to the next how much I’m going to get paid’ and that that can be ‘difficult to manage.’
“It’s not an anxiety, but, you know, the first thing I do when I wake up in the morning is check my bank account” she says
“What’s coming out today? And what I am going to have to pay for childcare when my daughter goes to her after school club? Things like that. I don’t think I’m different or special here, I think I’m in the same boat as a lot of people.”
“I hate thinking about it too much because it makes you really annoyed” she adds. “I feel I work so hard when I don’t have the children. I’m working most of the time.
Colette says it is ‘amazing’ that clubs such as that run The Bread and Butter Thing exist(Image: Sean Hansford | Manchester Evening News)
“It’s not like I’m just sat home watching TV drinking cups of tea or anything. I’m always doing stuff, and so I find it really frustrating and demoralising. But I don’t let myself dwell on it.”
With regards the food club, she says: “At first It did help, but it wasn’t as much of a necessity as it is now.
“I feel if I went back to not using it and having to go to Sainsbury’s every week for the same amount of stuff, that would have a really big impact on me if I had to do that instead.
“I would need to find another £40 a week, or whatever a food shop would be, and where does that money now come from?
“If I couldn’t use it, or if it wasn’t available to me, I would have to think what do we change to be able to navigate to normal supermarkets.
“The children have music lessons, which very important to me, and something like that would probably have to be knocked on the head. We’ve already had to cut down a lot of their activities.”
She said the visit to the supermarket for the items for her son’s food tech class was ‘a really stark reminder about how useful it is.’
The Bread Butter Thing operates 145 food clubs across the country, including 55 in Greater Manchester, Merseyside and Cheshire which support around 40,000.
They say their aim is to ‘make sure that no matter what our members are going through, they can still put tasty, healthy food on the table.’ It’s free to join, no referral is needed, and most importantly, they say, there is ‘no judgement.’
“I’m a successful, intelligent person in their 40s and I feel a bit disappointed in myself that I’m not able to provide in the way that I would like to for my family” she says.
“I went to a grammar school in Bristol. You know, my dad was a lawyer. It was a very middle class, upbringing. And I just never thought I’d be in a position where I would need this kind of help. However, I know I’m not alone.
“And I think it’s amazing that That Bread and Butter Thing, and I know where are other places around the country, that are doing this kind of thing. For the food waste as well as supermarkets throw out so much food. So if there are places where it can be used, then all the better.”