Social Bite’s mission to end homelessness in Scotland

Social Bite has transformed from your everyday café chain into a huge social enterprise with aims of eventually eradicating homelessness in Scotland – and beyond

In 2012 Alice Thompson and Josh Littlejohn opened a modest sandwich shop in New Town Edinburgh with the intention of giving all profits away to good causes. Eight years on, Social Bite now operates a chain of five shops, a bustling delivery service, a community housing project, and in-house employment programs. And each substrata of the company is geared toward one common goal: to eventually eradicate homelessness from Scotland.

Through prioritising the homeless community with their own recruitment opportunities, Social Bite continues to open its eyes to the complexity of issues facing those living on the streets while providing them with stable jobs.

To date, Social Bite has distributed 140,000 items of healthy free food from their cafes each year, while their ‘Social Supper’ events continue to connect 400 vulnerable people on a weekly basis with food, professional support, and careers guidance.

On a broader scale, the company has raised close to £8 million through ‘Sleep in the Park’ campaigns in the last two years, and the money has been funnelled into a framework known as the Social Bite Fund for ‘eradicating core homelessness in Scotland’s largest cities’ – commissioned by Heriot-Watt University.