Partners in Business Sustainability - My Main Street

Partners in Business Sustainability - My Main Street

In March 2024, Amanda and I (Stef) applied for funding through My Main Street to expand our business to accommodate a slower and more sustainable rate of growth for our business going into the summer of 2024. However, we were unaware that the process of this application would be very consuming, and we did not receive our funding until September, which meant that many of the equipment pieces we were hoping to purchase (new slushie machine, new ice machine), have since become less of a concern for 2024's summer growth and become more about how do we set up the equipment and systems that our growing staff needs to reasonably fulfill the high standards we set for ourselves.

 

Some things that we applied for with this funding include:

- A two-door display fridge for catering and custom orders

- An undercounter freezer to allow for more space for our growing wholesale department

- An ice machine

- A dishwasher

- A 3-compartment slushie machine

- A desktop computer for managing orders and inventory

- A receipt printer

- A soup kettle

- Shelving for additional dry storage

And several other smaller equipment upgrades.

We've always prioritized investing back into our business so we can build sustainability from the beginning, knowing that scaling a food service business can be a huge hurdle for many folks. We will continue to do so, but we could not have made these incredibly necessary upgrades without the funding provided to us by the My Main Street program, the Canadian Urban Institute, and the Government of Canada through the Federal Economic Development Agency for Southern Ontario (FedDev Ontario).

We have begun the process of adding our equipment in order of priority, since ordering, delivering, setting up the equipment and rearranging systems for using it are all things that take time, and we are in a season where that is what we are the most short on. But we look forward to the day when one of our staff says to another, "remember when we washed all our dishes by hand?" and we can tell horror stories of dry chapped hands and bleach stains on clothes, and remember how far we have come.

Thanks again to our community for believing in us, for championing us, and for giving us the motivation to fight for this business even when we aren't sure what we have left. You're the best part of us, and we love you.

- Stef

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