JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – According to the National Bureau of Economic Research, 41% of Black-owned businesses have closed since the start of the pandemic compared to 17% of white businesses.
The National Urban League and The PepsiCo Foundation teamed up to reverse that trend committing $10 million, over the next five years, to help 500 Black-owned businesses across the country stay afloat.
Connie and Manch Kersee are the owners of Forks on the Left Catering.
It started back in 1998 and grew into a full-service company also providing food services for local schools.
Thanks to the Black Restaurant Accelerator program, it received the necessary help to continue its mission during the pandemic.
“Hundreds of thousands of meals, breakfast and lunch and snacks for six schools in the Jacksonville area. So that became a big passion for us, feeding kids and making sure they were getting the nourishment and nutritional values that they needed for the day,” said Connie Kersee.
Forks of the Left Catering was on the brink of a business expansion before the pandemic hit.
From catering to food service management with local schools across the River City, the company had big plans for 2020.
“That kind of took the wind out of that sail,” said Connie Kersee, remembering the moment the pandemic severely impacted her business.
Once it hit, the company had to pivot and shift to meal prepping, online orders, and deliveries to stay afloat.
Struggling to keep their business thriving, the Kersees had to seek new ways to obtain additional funding to keep moving forward during uncertain times.
“There’s not a lot of doors for African-Americans to get that type of intensive help and someone to say, ‘Hey I will give you $10,000 to help you market your business or keep your employees afloat or those different things like that. That was a game-changer for us,” said Manch Kersee. “It was a lifeline for us.”
That lifeline was Pepsi Co Foundation’s Black Restaurant Accelerator program.
The foundation is partnering with the National Urban League to offer Black restaurant owners across the country capital, technical assistance, mentorship, and other essential business tools.
“Only 2% of Black-owned businesses received any money in the first round of PPE loans. So, and if we go any further, the playing field wasn’t leveled before that. Before that, as Manch was saying the access to capital. So Black-owned businesses were twice as likely to be turned down for loans from financial institutions, even though they more than likely were asking for less money. So, for us, it’s all part of our racial equality journey. It’s all part of our commitment to try right the playing field for small businesses and help them be as successful as white-owned businesses and really make a more equitable America,” said Charlene Denizard, Pepsi Co. Foundation Director of Philanthropy for North America.
Without the grant, the Kersees said their business would be a least a year behind.
“We would have been trying to get loans, all those different things. And at this point right now, it would have been pretty dire. At the best-case scenario, Connie would have had to go back to work full time and it would have kind of been a dream deferred at that point,” said Manch Kersee.
But with this funding, Forks on the Left Catering was able to expand its marketing and update equipment for larger catering events.
“For a small business, it is a challenge to be able to get the type of grant that we got from them. I walk in the business with those types of things and if you don’t have any equity in your home and all these different things. Especially in the restaurant and food service business everything is tied up into that. So Black businesses a lot of times you don’t know about the services or how to package your deals. And how to put your paperwork together,” said Manch Kersee.
Since the program started in 2021, it has supported 100 businesses with $10,000 grants and 500 businesses have also received essential counseling.
“Pepsi Co’s total commitment to Black and Hispanic-owned restaurants is $100 million. So, we have other programs we have expanded to, and our commitment is sincere, and we are putting our money where our mouth is and we’re not just making the commitment, we’re actually getting the money out there to small businesses just like Fork on the Left,” said Denizard.
Through this program, Forks on the Left plans to build a kitchen commissary for other caterers and people in the food industry to have a commercial kitchen for their respective businesses.
It also wants to continue to focus on decreasing food insecurity for children around Jacksonville.
To learn more about Forks of the Left Catering, you can click here.
You can find more information about the Black Restaurant Accelerator Program and how to locate Black-owned businesses near you here: https://www.pepsidigin.com/.