Our Story
transforming lives one loaf at a time since 2015
Growing from a bike delivery to a market model, to an e-commerce and wholesale service, Breadwinners has sought to continuously improve over the years in order to be able to support more young refugees and people seeking asylum through selling bread!
2015
Marika Wilkinson and Shipton Mill founder John Lister come up with the idea for Breadwinners.
2016
The Breadwinners Foundation is officially launched as a charity. Originally, our mission was to support people into employment by helping them set up their own fresh bread bike delivery business.
2017
Breadwinners shifts to its current market stall model with our first paid employability programme for young refugees, the Breadwinners Programme, launched at our first market at Victoria Park. Martin Cosarinsky Campos also joins as Managing Director in the fall.
2018
Our second, voluntary programme for young people seeking asylum, the Risers Programme, is launched and we expand to four markets across London.
2019
Our core team grows from two to four members and we support 30 programme participants for the first time over the course of the year!
2020
Our E-commerce and third programme for training Online Sales Representatives, the Proofers Programme, are both launched following the temporary closure of markets during the COVID-19 pandemic.
2021
We open in a second city, Brighton, with our Breadwinners pilot programme and launch our Wholesale service to stock our baked goods in coffeeshops (replaces our E-commerce). We also move into our first office ever located in 3Space Brixton!
2022
Our core team grows to a total of nine members across London and Brighton, our first Risers programme pilot is launched in Brighton, and we pass the 14 markets milestone!
2023
We supported 181 refugees and young people seeking asylum in the financial year 2023/24.
2024
We launch our new Theory of Change. As well as our employability programmes, we recognise and focus on the importance of community building activities, youth voices and safeguarding and crisis response as building blocks of our work.
Helping to raise youth voices are our two communications assistants Peju and Sara!