Bread + Roses cafe on how it spent crowdfunding money as closure announced

Earlier this week, the popular Bread + Roses cafe on Bradford’s North Parade announced plans to close.

The team had made several attempts to save its future but said the business “unfortunately cannot continue sustainably”.

It comes after the public raised £30,281 to stop the cafe’s immediate closure between June and July.

The cafe had hoped the money would secure its future until the end of January 2023.

Less than four months later, the fund appears to have run dry.

• Read more: Bradford cafe announces closure 'with a heavy heart'

How has Bread + Roses spent the £30k donation?

Since the crowdfunding page was closed on July 12, the café has spent £30,281 in donations on costs of running the business – such as electricity, cost of goods and staff wages.

Staff received a small pay rise in line with the cost-of-living crisis and the cafe’s agreement as a living wage employer.

The money was also put towards a number of trading losses, the T&A was told, as well as an increase in cost of goods over the past few months.

The cafe said it lost six to eight weeks of business income due to low footfall and higher expenditure than expected previously. 

A spokesperson for Bread + Roses said: “Bread + Roses has always thrived on a basis of grant funding and generous support from our community and we couldn’t be more thankful to our supporters over the years in helping us to build and nurture our community spirit. 

“Our most recent successful crowdfunder helped in our aim to keep us open until the end of the year, although continued trading losses and increased costs have meant that we lost a a month on our earlier forecast.

“We kept the doors open, provided our staff with a small pay rise in line with the cost of living crisis (maintaining ourselves as a living wage employer), applied for numerous grants and explored further funding opportunities, including the option to become a charitable community benefit society.

“Unfortunately we underestimated the time it would take to turn things around.

"Given the current economic circumstances, we were forced into a decision again on whether to close and when that would happen.

“We can say with utmost confidence that we did our best to achieve our aims with the time and resources we had.

“It is a sad moment for all involved, and for Bradford to lose such a valuable community space.

1/ With a heavy heart, we are announcing the closure of Bread + Roses on the 18.11.22. This year we ran a successful crowdfunder that raised close to £30,000 + it was thought this would be enough to see us through to the new year pic.twitter.com/hxJUnU8tVG

— Bread + Roses (@BreadandRosesBD) October 31, 2022

“We’d like to use this opportunity to say thank you to all who have supported Bread + Roses over the years, and we want to celebrate and look back on everything achieved by our wonderful community, in bringing so many projects and organisations from diverse backgrounds together under one roof to promote hope and creativity in Bradford.

“The building, the ideas, the hope and the people are not lost - just the business - for now."

Bread + Roses - run by a cooperative of local businesses, food producers, arts groups and charities - opened on North Parade in August 2018.

It will close on November 18, 2022.

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