THE SOCIAL Bite pioneering sandwich shop chain which offers employment to homeless people and donates 100% of its profits to charity is to be backed by Sir Tom Hunter.
The Hunter Foundation is investing £200,000 in the Social Bite. This funding, and new debt finance support from Social Investment Scotland, will allow the fourth Social Bite cafe, this time in Glasgow's Bothwell Street, to emerge, with more to come.
Social Bite was founded by young couple Josh Littlejohn and partner Alice Thompson just over two years ago. They were inspired by a visit to Bangladesh, where they met the Nobel Peace Prize Winner Prof Muhammad Yunus and learned about his idea of a "Social Business".
Neither Littlejohn or Thompson own a single share in the business; the shares are owned by a parent charity which distributes the profits to good causes.
Sir Tom Hunter's investment comes with no personal financial return. "Josh and Alice are an inspiration and are at the forefront of the social enterprise movement in Scotland," he said. "I believe government needs to take a long hard look at how businesses like Social Bite can be incentivised further. If you analyse the net gain to the taxpayer of taking young but ambitious people off the homelessness register and into employment, surely more should be done to support them?"
Social Bite founder Mr Littlejohn said: "We are really excited to open our fourth shop. With this infrastructure and a central kitchen we should be in a position to donate around £4000 to charity every month. Next stop for us is Aberdeen and Dundee."
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