Catering firm Sodexo is teaming up with social enterprise Social Bite to produce food for the Edinburgh International Book Festival

People visiting the Edinburgh International Book Festival this August will be helping one of Scotland's best known social enterprises support homeless people.

Book festival caterers Sodexo has teamed up with social enterprise sandwich chain Social Bite for the three week event.

The partnership with Social Bite will see the social enterprise supplying sandwiches and salad boxes with 50p from the sale of each going directly to the Social Bite fund.

Social Bite runs five shops in Edinburgh, Aberdeen and Glasgow and was set up by entrepreneur Josh Littlejohn to help stop homelessness. To stay true to its aim, a quarter of its staff come from homeless backgrounds.

This partnership will allow Sodexo to raise awareness of a local social enterprise and support efforts to create a village in Edinburgh for homeless people, which Social Bite believes would help break the vicious cycle of life on the streets and introduce stability to the lives of many homeless people.

Sandy Robson, account director at Sodexo, said: “This new partnership will only enhance our offering, while allowing us to give back to a worthwhile community initiative.”

Charlotte Turner, head of corporate catering at Social Bite, said: “We are extremely happy that Sodexo has given us such a wonderful opportunity to show not only the quality of the food we produce, but also highlight the even more important aim of our mission to tackle the root causes of homelessness and work towards eradicating it.”

Sodexo provides all on-site food and drink facilities at the annual festival. The caterer prides itself on its local supply chain and will use produce from a number of Edinburgh based suppliers.