At 21, Alice co-founded Social Bite, a social business sandwich shop chain in Edinburgh, Glasgow and Aberdeen, employing and feeding the homeless community. A quarter of their 100+ staff comes from backgrounds of homelessness. They offer a full support programme for their staff, and also feed the homeless through pay it forward service. They run Social Suppers in each of their locations, including women-only evenings, where members of the homeless community can join in for a chat and something hot to eat, helping them to feel less lonely and isolated.  

What makes Alice’s achievements even more impressive and totally relatable is that it wasn’t a straightforward path for her. She attended university for 2 years to study Events Management, but quickly realised that it wasn’t the best way for her to progress. So she left at 19, took on an unpaid internship with a fledging events company run by Josh Littlejohn (the co-founder of Social Bite) from an office size of a cupboard, and 6 months later she was running Scotland’s Ski & Snowboard Show, and coordinating The Scottish Business Awards. Both Alice and Josh were inspired by Nobel Peace Prize Winner Professor Muhammad Yunus, so they used last of their money to book tickets to Bangladesh to meet with him to discuss the social business model he champions – a business created and designed to address a social problem. And so the idea for Social Bite was born.