Now’s the Time to Put Our Money Where Our Mouth Is

From individuals to corporations to local and state governments interested in supporting the flailing food industry, there has never been a more important time to put your money where your mouth is by investing locally.

San Francisco’s food economy — like many big cities — took the greatest hit last year as small businesses were forced to shutter and large companies and individuals kicked off a trend of mass exodus. The need to flee only exacerbated the problem for local restaurants and small businesses.

In response, a handful of individuals and corporations adjusted and committed to sticking around and spending locally in an effort to rebuild.

We’re joining the rallying cry of those who refuse to be told that our once thriving industries are better served elsewhere, that our neighborhoods are turning into ghost towns, or that it is more financially sound to leave the Bay Area. Our community is the San Francisco Bay Area, our community is here, and we, for one, can clearly see the upside to investing in the city’s longevity.

Committing to the community means choosing to stay and support small, local employers.

For those in the business of feeding people, like us, that means committing to working with small and local players — including farmers, chefs, restaurants, and food businesses of all kinds — as well as delivery couriers, adjacent businesses, nonprofit organizations, and government agencies. These are all suffering from the past year, but they’re also the key to turning it all around.

We’ve been intentional about connecting local businesses with opportunities in an equitable way. Our food vendors’ network lost one of the most integral pieces of their business during COVID–connecting with their community. We brought that back to them by enlisting them to help us feed the Bay Area through a variety of food relief efforts.

Whether we were feeding frontline workers at Zuckerberg General Hospital, bringing meals to grocery store employees, delivering groceries to those affected by COVID-19 in San Jose, or serving emergency responders and evacuees during wildfire season, we tapped into our Creator network to give them secured equitable business opportunities and a direct line of connection to their communities.

As companies and organizations, we can choose to abandon ship or commit to seeing things through in our community. We can choose to work with national behemoths or we can choose to champion the small guy. And we can encourage our employees, who are making individual choices, to do the same.

Employees can be encouraged to do their part, too.

For individuals, that means getting groceries from a local farmer, ordering takeout directly from the restaurant, or supporting the resident neighborhood bread maker.

There are options such as ordering dinner through a third-party delivery service or calling up the vendor and picking up an order on your own. Making a mindful decision seemingly as minute as how you’re getting your dinner can greatly impact a small business.

It seems that the general public has finally begun to understand how exactly third-party delivery services work (or rather, how much they charge local businesses to work). As the pandemic gave almost everyone around the country the only option of takeout and delivery, we’ve seen startups step up to the plate and create new food delivery services that are made specifically for small businesses.

New players like Traillo in Brooklyn, Black and Mobile in Philadelphia, and Chowbus in Chicago have created less aggressive revenue plans to truly support independent restaurants and help them with reeling revenue streams. We’ve also seen companies like WEAT in New York City — which is approaching local restaurants to create exclusive meal kits by handling all local delivery for a fraction of the cost — aiding local businesses to create entirely new revenue streams.

What’s evident throughout is a prioritization of small, local business communities. And there’s a lot we could take in and learn from.

Local governments have a responsibility to act on this commitment.

We’ve seen the cities of San Francisco and San Jose make efforts by tapping local businesses to provide food relief to those in need during the pandemic. in partnership with Off the Grid and other organizations—who then partnered with independent restaurants, food truck operators, local farms and food purveyors—these city efforts allowed for groceries and meals to be delivered directly to community members who were food insecure.

We could learn from other city and state governments around the country that have committed to small businesses in various ways. As the COVID pandemic surged, a wave of local governments put caps on third-party delivery fees. From the east coast to the west coast, in New Jersey, New York City, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, and Portland, local city officials passed bills to help small, local and independent restaurants.

As a community member, corporation, small business, or local government, we have the opportunity to make small choices that have large, profound impacts on small businesses and, ultimately, our community.

So, we open the question to you: how are you spending money on food in an impactful way?