The Peeblean: Food Punks Pizza Protest
Our long read on the Food Punks project and the situation leading up to yesterday's protest. The founding staff team have been made redundant from their permanent contracts and want more answers.

This is our second in-depth article, the first was a feature on the Eastgate’s financial situation earlier in the year. We plan to write these in positive contexts as well, not just when issues emerge.
What follows is a long read but we hope it fills in some of the background to the Food Punks project and its aims and values. It is an extract of the considerable amount of material we’ve compiled over the last week and we want to thank all those who spoke to us.
This is a story of the immense potential of our young people and the value of the right opportunity when it has support and encouragement at its heart.
We hope it underlines the importance of trust and good communication within a project when situations emerge that weren’t predicted.
As someone this week pointed out, the Eastgate Theatre’s funding challenge shows the power of this community to pull together around a situation.
This remains a story that could have a happy ending…
“We should have been in there working today” was the message from Food Punks lead Stuart Clink to Peebles Community Council on Thursday evening. “I want that shop open… this was first raised in November… they’ve had plenty of time to sort this out.”
Instead, Stuart, his partner Amanda and several members of the founding team spent Thursday afternoon standing outside Project Pizza with banners highlighting their predicament. For several of the protesters, that situation is now a redundancy notice from a job they loved.
Food Punks background
Food Punks - an initiative of Tweeddale Youth Action - was already a brand name familiar to Peebleans and visitors to the Tweed Valley. Alongside the Bike Punks project, the Food Punks gazebo was a familiar presence at events as they served up tasty food from camp-style kitchens. Together with TYA’s youth work services for young people in the area, these outreach activities gave the charity visibility and connection to the wider community, as well as generating cash and building experience.
TYA’s 2022-23 annual report says “Food and its preparation and delivery continues to be a cornerstone of TYA’s success. Food Punks continues to inspire young people and, under the guidance of Stuart Clink is going from strength to strength, generating income through outside catering events. The purchase of pizza ovens has been a huge success.”
By 2023-24, the Food Punks project was already offering supported employment contracts to young people and had supported others into paid employment elsewhere. The challenge was that each outside catering project had different requirements and this hindered some aspects of the training aspiration, where repetition and consolidation of skills was required. The idea was emerging for something that gave the project a more permanent base and when premises fell vacant on Peebles High Street an opportunity presented itself.
Making the idea a reality
The process of taking on a bricks and mortar shop took time and planning but by April 2024 funders were on board and the premises were secured. Here’s TYA’s annual report for 2023-24:
There have also been exciting developments in Peebles where Food Punks, led by Stuart Clink, have begun the journey to open a fast-food pizza shop on the High Street. This is an ambitious and challenging project, which is not without risk, but we at TYA feel that the rewards are justified to allow young people to develop skills which can be used in the hospitality industry through exposure to a “real life” catering business, as nothing beats on the job learning in a supportive environment to help the young people involved in this project to achieve and exceed their goals. In time we hope that the skills learned in the shop will lead to formal qualifications for all of those being trained by our innovative and talented Food Punks team.
Project Pizza launches
After a lot of preparation and a practice run, the Food Punks pizzeria formally opened its doors on Friday 20 September 2024. The promo information talked about the desire to establish a training facility as well as a takeaway shop:
The beauty of creating both simultaneously is that the training course is helping to lay the foundation of a social enterprise that will very soon be run by our first group of trainees (with a little help from Stu ). This team are part of building something incredible. They are making decisions that really matter and giving us insightful contributions which will make the training course and the shop even better.
In particular, I remember particularly being impressed that the trainees were being given advice on how to fuel themselves well and stay hydrated for the hard graft of kitchen work. This was a project that understood the precious opportunity it had been given, to offer their young trainees the skills not just to do the task but to sustain themselves in a career where long shifts, competing demands and high expectations are the norm.
Funding
The Project Pizza initiative generated significant publicity and pledges from funders who included South of Scotland Enterprise, Scottish Borders Council, the National Lottery and the Scottish Government.
The SBC support was in relation to rent reduction for the shop as it was part of Peebles Common Good estate which is managed by the Council.
The Scottish Government contributed through the Climate Challenge Fund and LEADER programme.
South of Scotland Enterprise funded the project £43,000 mainly for capital costs for the refit but also provided business planning support and advice.
Media Reporting
The publicity around the project was considerable and really positive. Here’s the South of Scotland Enterprise press release
This BBC story ran on 1 November and focused on the chef-led catering operation and the sense that the novice staff were already building confidence and considering the future career potential of what they were learning.
Trading Hours and Staffing: the first 10 weeks
At the launch the shop was open 13 hours/week, 11-3 on Wednesday, Thursday and 11-5 on Friday with Monday and Tuesday allocated for staff training and preparation. On 13 November, the project tweaked its trading hours to 14 hours a week across Wednesday (12-4), Thursday (12-5) and Friday (12-5).
The shop team at that time was Kieran, Ethan, Rachel, Arran, Alex, Stu, Kim and Matthew with Amanda providing support on branding, marketing, business development and the training programme. As far as we can establish the trainee catering team were issued permanent contracts of employment.
Wider awareness was further aided by MSPs Craig Hoy and Christine Grahame hearing about the project and mentioning it in Parliament. By the time the project closed for a two week break over Christmas and New Year it was clear that it was making an impact for both staff, customers and across the wider community.
Rachel’s Story
Rachel is of the project’s initial employees. She has an autism diagnosis and wasn’t feeling supported at school, so she left at the end of S4. She describes her level of confidence at that time as low and says there was just a scarcity of opportunities locally. Here’s how she describes getting started with the project:
“I was quite nervous joining the team because it’s hard for me meeting new people but since I was with them for 4 days a week I soon felt more comfortable and they made me feel safe. I really like baking cakes and learning more skills in that area was a great experience. I have definitely surprised myself in all the new skills I have learned, some I never thought I could do such as having the keys to open up the shop.”
“Stuart knew I loved baking and wanted me involved from the start and really tailored my role to suite my skills. Stuart and Amanda have been really supportive throughout it all and I couldn’t have made it this far without them. The team were also supportive of one another because we were all enjoying our work together.”
Project Finances and Forecasts - November 2024
What happened next isn’t yet completely clear but according to an account given to Peebles Community Council, some financial considerations started to emerge in November.
Within two months of opening, the success of the project meant there was a strong likelihood that the business turnover would hit the VAT threshold by summer 2025. The autumn UK budget had also announced changes to NI rates and minimum wage increases were also increasing from 1 April 2025.
We have heard that various options were starting to be discussed – we assume at board level – including the option to seek additional funding, perhaps to separate the two entities (TYA and Food Punks) or reducing trading hours significantly.
Here’s the TYA chair in an email to one of the families:
“… the trustees had a lengthy meeting with TYA's accountant and it became clear at the end of that meeting the only sensible decision was to remain below the VAT threshold and protect the operations of the wider charity of TYA. This was balanced against not just the operation of the shop but our commitments to other funders to carry out other services to young people such as the drop ins and one to one supports.”
This email from TYA also refers to a VAT liability to be payable during summer/autumn of 2025.
“…the shop over it's trading period had consistently failed to produce a surplus and had we increased trading hours the deficit was only likely to increase - coupled with the additional burdens of an increase in the minimum wage, additional national insurance payments and predicted VAT liability which was likely to be payable during the summer/autumn time this year the only sensible course of action for the trustees was to reduce the trading hours and stay under the VAT threshold.
The question of VAT liabilities has caused some confusion among some VAT-savvy people we’ve spoken to (including a former VAT inspector who sits on Peebles Community Council). They note VAT is chargeable before it’s payable (you collect it on behalf of HMRC and then pay it to them on a quarterly or annual basis). Any VAT liability would also be offset a little by the VAT the project was also paying out on sundries and other costs. That said, we are not party to the advice the charity has received nor the project’s finances so any comment can only be speculative.
Into 2025
In January 2025, the staff started making inquiries of the TYA board and leadership about their assessment of the situation, asking for information on what professional advice had been received.
Peebles CC were told that “staff requests to trustees to discuss it were ignored” and we understand this also included a list of questions prepared by the shop team. We understand that additional support for the team was also asked for throughout this period due to the uncertainty of the situation.
We’ve heard mention of a working group but we can find no evidence of this being set up. There were also trustee resignations around this time but we can’t confirm if these were connected.
Shop Closure
Things came to a head in March 2025 when decisions to significantly reduce the shop’s trading pattern appear to have been taken without any input from the Food Punks staff. Many of the trainees struggled to process why the charity had made a decision without any discussion with them and they experienced stress and anxiety about the very limited options that TYA were presenting to them – their jobs were effectively disappearing. Many were signed off work with stress. This led to the shop closure on the 19 March this year.
The TYA chair wrote in an email to Rachel’s family “The impact on the young people involved in the shop was taken into account when making the decision”. Nobody on the staff team feels taken into account.
What the staff have told us is that nobody was in contact to ask how they were doing from the 19 March onwards. While we understand there will be HR guidance on whether staff members should be contacted when signed off with stress, this is also a charity that knew intimately well the struggles and anxieties of the team in its care and the context for their absence.
Here’s Rachel again explaining what impact this had:
I feel like I had a great job in a great team and it’s been stripped away from me. I enjoyed my job and it felt like we were just getting going and I could do it for years. TYA have taken this from us and left us with nothing. This has been a really painful experience for me and there were days when I shut down and couldn’t even speak.
In recent weeks, the young people received letters inviting them to one-to-one meetings to discuss the impact on their roles and salary. According to one staff member’s account these letters did not mention redundancy. At least one of the young people was unable to attend and when a meeting was subsequently arranged they were then given notice of redundancy.
Rachel and her family see a pattern emerging from TYA’s failure to answer questions prior to March, the lack of contact in the weeks following closure and then a lack of explanation since. And that’s why they have questions. They have written to councillors and local MSPs to ask for their support and they’ve also emailed questions to the board of trustees seeking answers.
The decision to go public with this wasn’t their preference but based on an increasing sense that the community should understand the situation that wasn’t otherwise being shared.
We’re closing with a paragraph from Rachel’s mum, Lucie:
This project was a light in the darkness for Rachel after many years of challenges and missed school. Stuart and Amanda were absolutely incredible in how they have gently nurtured and encouraged Rachel to be proud of her skilled work in the kitchen. Youth work and projects like this should not be measured by profits and funding criteria. They need to be measured by the improvement in young people’s lives and the relationships built. Sometimes that will involve no measurable “outcome” but a trust in the people delivering it.
The statement issued by TYA this weeks says:
Despite busy trading, the shop has been operating at a loss and this is unsustainable. TYA can not afford to subsidise the shop's previous operating mode and it is not possible to source external funding for a failing business. Financial forecasts showed the shop exceeding the VAT threshold, which would have added an additional VAT cost that could not be paid by TYA with its current income and liabilities. This could have led to the collapse of TYA as an organisation.
TYA trustees took the difficult decision to reduce the pizza shops trading hours as a short term measure to ensure trading remained below the VAT threshold. This would give the breathing space required to address the profitability of the shop.
The long term goal is for the shop to become financially sustainable.
A South of Scotland Enterprise spokesperson said: “We are aware of the temporary closure of the social enterprise Food Punks in Peebles. We have engaged with local charity Tweeddale Youth Action, who operate Food Punks, in recent weeks to find out more information and to offer guidance and support. We hope to see a resolution to the issue in the near future.
“All SOSE grant awards follow our standard appraisal and due diligence processes. Information relating to the organisation and the project is gathered and analysed against standard appraisal criteria, which includes the strategic, economic, financial, management and commercial cases for support.”
What a great article, thanks Peeblean, v well and expressed .
A few things perhaps stand out with this charity:
1. Poor business plan to anticipate how it was going to pan out in a worthwhile project.
2. Lack of compassion and communication for the vulnerable young adults involved who were meant to be helped.
3. So much support in the local community not taken forward to make it work by TYA
4. Loosing sight of one of their core objectives (which gets funding!) to help young adults into the work place and build their skills.
5. Disconnect between Trustees/Manager with the pizza enterprise to understand and continue to make it a positive success story rather than it spiralling out of control to upset so many in the community and esp the (former) hard working staff.
6. So what next for how TYA is being run?
Thanks for gathering all sides of this very important story and laying it out so clearly. Hopefully these incredible young people will get some answers now. There is a huge amount of support for them and this project in local business and wider community.