Thank you, Al, for that wonderful introduction. It’s a real honor to be here with you, Eric and the board members of the Foodservice Sales & Marketing Association as well as all the FSMA members who are joining us from across the country.
I also want to acknowledge Amy Bassett, who is the District Director for our New Hampshire Office as well as SBA’s acting Regional Administrator for Region one. SBA’s district directors and regional administrators are strong local advocates and offer a wealth of information and resources that I hope all will leverage. Amy – thank you for your help in organizing this event.
And thank you, Tom, for your great remarks and for your leadership and service on behalf of our nation’s restaurants.
This has been an extremely tough year for the restaurant industry, and Tom, I know you have worked so hard to make sure that your members have the support they need to make it through. I worked closely with in CA with CRA land partnerships.
You and your team have been an important partner to the SBA in the development of the Restaurant Revitalization Fund – your advocacy, dedication and expertise have been critical to my team in ensuring industry views and needs are reflected in the design. I look forward to continuing our collaboration so that we can get our nation’s restaurants the financial assistance they need to recover and rebuild -- and the long-term support to thrive.
I understand that your organization held its Public Affairs Conference yesterday and I was so glad to see the Restaurant Revitalization Fund on the agenda
… as well as post-pandemic trends.
And Because while the SBA --- is laser focused on helping our small businesses recover and rebuild now… we’re ALSO looking ahead to what happens once the pandemic ENDS … and our new normal BEGINS.
Thanks to the Biden-Harris administration’s shots in arms campaign – and the dedication of healthcare workers on the frontlines -- half of all adults in the U.S. have received at least one dose of the vaccine.
We will gather in restaurants again – dining with family and friends.
We will hold after-work happy hours.
We will have power lunches or pop out of work for a quick lunch from our favorite street vendor or food truck.
While it’s hard to predict what our new normal will look like, we know that some things will have changed forever. And small businesses, our economy’s most powerful engine, have taken up the challenge to pivot and adapt.
Across industries and sectors, our nation’s small businesses have used their innovative spirit and grit to adjust to a pandemic marketplace – tracking market trends and finding solutions to stay in business and stay connected with their customers.
And the SBA will pivot and adapt as well.
The SBA can be as entrepreneurial as the entrepreneurs we serve. And our mission-focused agency is rising to meet the moment.
Just as small businesses are laser focused on their customers’ needs, I’ve directed my staff to implement a customer-first approach to the way we design and deliver our programs. This also means focusing on technology and innovation to simplify processes and achieve our new scale while committing to equity across all our programs and initiatives. We want to meet the small businesses where they are instead of waiting for them to come to us
This approach is reflected in the $28.6 billion dollar Restaurant Revitalization Fund that will provide targeted relief to our nation’s food and beverage service small businesses.
The Restaurant Fund was the biggest ticket item for small businesses in the American Rescue Plan that was signed into law last month by President Biden. And the reason for that is because both Congress and the president recognize that restaurants were among the businesses that were first to close – and will likely be among the last to fully reopen.
Millions of workers have been impacted, including many from FSMA.
This past weekend, we started rolling out information and distributing program details – as we expect to open the application portal soon and want to help businesses get ready to apply. Right now, we’re reaching out to groups like FSMA to help us get the word out that help is here. And our customer service hotline is live 8am to 8pm EST M-F with support in 10 languages from experts who have a direct line to our leadership to triage any decisions in real time – 844.279.8898
Again, this program is designed with restaurants and food and beverage businesses - the end-users - in mind, paying particular attention to how they’ve been running their businesses in the marketplace and their reality over the past year.
Grants amounts range from $1,000 dollars to $5 million dollars per location, with $10 million total for each entity.
And because we know that the smallest businesses as well as minority-owned businesses have suffered the most from this pandemic, Congress included language in the American Rescue Plan that mandates a 21-day priority period for small businesses owned by women, veterans, and socially or economically disadvantaged people. It also includes a 9.5 billion set aside for smaller and the smallest businesses.
This is in line with the Biden-Harris administration’s focus on equity – a vision that I’m committed to at the SBA to ensure our programs support ALL businesses especially those that have been historically underserved or left out.
Equity matters for all of us if we’re going to build an economy that works for everyone. We need ALL of our businesses to survive and thrive.
Congress also directed us to define “restaurants” expansively to ensure that the smallest businesses aren’t left behind -- traditional restaurants, food stands, food trucks, food carts, breweries, taprooms, taverns, bars all qualify..
There are key design elements that we believe will help us meet businesses where they are – we’ve teamed with ecosystem partners like point of sale vendors so that businesses can access the program and get support in a platform they are familiar with …online applications in 2 languages with support in 8 more and translations in 16…and a user intuitive application with “walk me” features to hover over descriptions and guidance throughout the application.
The SBA understands that the food service industry is much bigger than restaurants. From manufacturers, to wholesale distributors, to the sales and marketing professionals represented by FSMA, you are part of an economic sector that generates $425 billion dollars in annual sales.
And you’ve also been hit hard by this pandemic.
We’re here help you – and every other small business in America -- get back on your feet.
Our Paycheck Protection Program has approved 4.7 million loans, averaging about $50,000 each, since January 2021 alone. Likewise, our Economic Injury Disaster Loans program has approved more than $200 billion in loans since April 2020.
Both of these programs received billions of dollars more in funding through the American Rescue Plan, along with directives to target the smallest of our small businesses.
Just as we did with the Restaurant Revitalization Fund, we’ve adapted our rules and processes with the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) and Economic Injury Disaster Loans (EIDL) programs to focus on reaching our smallest and hardest-hit businesses.
And it’s working. I’m proud to say that in the current round of PPP (as of 4/20), the number of loans that went to businesses with fewer than 20 employees reached 94 percent.
Alpha Coffee in Cottonwood Heights, Utah was one of these small businesses.
Lieutenant Colonel Carl Churchill, and his wife Lori, started the online coffee retailer in 2010. In 2020, when the pandemic hit, they had expanded to a brick-and-mortar operation with 20 employees, with plans to open a second and third location.
They were able to keep their staff employed – and their doors open for online ordering and curbside pick-up –in part because of the PPP loan they got from the SBA. They also applied for an EIDL loan, which allowed them to continue to grow.
They are now in the process of opening their third location.
Alpha Coffee is just one example of the millions of small businesses and innovative startups across the country that are looking past this pandemic to the future.
The SBA wants to be there to help with immediate relief and long-term recovery. We want to connect all entrepreneurs with capital, markets (the revenue side of the equation), and networks, to ensure that the small businesses of today and tomorrow have the resources they need to build back better.
I hope you will go to SBA.gov today to find out how we can help you – from federal lending and investment programs, innovation research grants, technical assistance, government contracting to international trade. We have district offices and resource partners across the nation. Reach out to them as you are pivoting and adapting to your new normal, post-pandemic marketplace.
America already has the entrepreneurial spirit to build back better. All we need to do is give that spirit the support it needs to soar.
What I enjoy more than anything about leading the SBA is serving as the voice of small business, I want our entrepreneurs to feel like the giants they are in our economy.
And I am committed to supporting the SBA to do just that by bringing back America’s small businesses, creating jobs and building an equitable economy that works for everyone.