The new collaborative agreement will see Compass operate retail sites on behalf of Change Please, with an ambition to enhance national coverage and together deliver a greater charitable impact. Compass has supported the social enterprise through supplying its wholesale coffee offer for a number of years across hundreds of sites in six countries internationally.
Change Please invests 100% of its profits into helping people who are experiencing homelessness by providing them a living wage job, housing, training, and onward opportunities. They do this through their coffee sales.
Andrew Jones, managing director of One Retail, part of Compass Group UK & Ireland, said: “We recognise that as part of the UK’s largest food and support services provider we have the power to make a difference in the communities in which we work. Supporting Change Please is part of ‘Our Social Promise’, where we have committed to provide opportunities for over a million people by 2030.
“By working across new retail opportunities for Change Please, we hope to enable help for some of the most vulnerable people in society, delivering social value within communities. This is an agenda that we are passionate about, but also our clients and our people are too.”
Compass is committed to supporting Change Please’s mission through the provision of trainee work placements and the potential of ongoing employment for homeless people in all of the new sites in which the organisations work in together.
Cemal Ezal, founder of Change Please, added: “Working with Compass to support our retail remit is a great opportunity for national expansion. With their expert, operational support we hope to grow our brand – in turn freeing up our expertise to help more homeless people and providing them with life changing skills and careers.”