Big River is a Tyneside based social enterprise bakery with a big mission 'to make local food affordable and have an impact in the community where we are. Over the next two years we are rolling out a programme of accredited training opportunities for people facing complex barriers to achieving employment in our region. We’re thrilled that our programme is being funded by the European Social Investment and Life Chances Funds . We have worked hard to bring the pieces together to make this opportunity a reality and have been baking in our new home since September 2019.
But with Covid we are having to rework our premises to effectively continue our employability programmes whilst generating new trading income from catering, cafe and also continuing with our current food parcel operation. We need to make sure our working environment is safe for staff and customers which means we need to rework our premises and buy some new equipment to enhance the production and training space whilst keeping everyone safe.
1. Renovate our unused second toilet as a staff toilet to keep staff and customers distanced.
2. Improve hygiene and safety in all our entrance areas with additional sinks, better flooring and doors. A secondary impact of this work will be to make our premises accessible to all too.
3. Introduce distancing compliant seating both outside and inside premises to allow bakery cafe to be viable.
4. New cooking equipment which will allow us to launch a new catering offer to businesses.