BarterPay Partners with Restaurants Canada in Launching $5,000,000 Grant Program

HAMILTON, ON, Dec. 9, 2020 /CNW/ - BarterPay is a social profit enterprise that helps businesses across Canada acquire the products and services they need without having to use cash. Today, BarterPay announced a grant program that will distribute $5,000,000 in value to independent restaurants across Ontario to help them recover from the Covid-19 pandemic.

"The restaurant industry is suffering tremendously right now," said John Porter, Founder and CEO of BarterPay. "We want to do whatever we can to help them during this difficult time. Being able to obtain some things they need using their own gift cards as payment instead of cash is a big win. Now that we're offering a grant as well, it makes it that much better."

BarterPay helps Canadian businesses convert their unsold time and space and idle inventory, 'spare capacity', into Barter Credits™ at retail value. The Barter Credits™ can then be exchanged for other goods and services they need. This provides restaurants the ability to purchase supplies and services at their wholesale cost of goods rather than using cash during these trying times.

"Prior to Covid-19, all businesses had some spare capacity, but we're in a situation right now where downtime and idle inventory is magnified because of the pandemic." says John. "It's a tragedy to see value not being monetized. By leveraging BarterPay, business owners can capture that value and then redeem it later. An empty seat at a restaurant expires and creates zero value whereas Barter Credits™ never expire and can be used to offset future cash costs."

BarterPay has teamed up with one of their national partners, Restaurants Canada, to help promote this new program.

"In an industry where the average pre-tax profit margin is only 4.2%, restaurateurs are continuously looking for ways to improve the bottom line," said Christopher Barry, Director of Membership. "This $5,000,000 grant program could not have come at a better time as the pandemic has caused unprecedented cash flow challenges for operators across Canada. We are glad that this program is now available to give them a much-needed boost."

Here's how it works…Upon opening an account, BarterPay will advertise the restaurant's gift cards out to the network for Barter Credits™ at face value. Once the restaurant earns 1000 Barter Credits™, typically within the first 2 weeks, BarterPay will match it with an additional 1000 Barter Credits™. This gives the restaurant 2000 Barter Credits™ that they can now utilize back within the BarterPay ecosystem to offset some costs. They can redeem for anything on the system like PPE, printing, advertising, employee gifts, construction, signage, web design, social media management, draft line services and so much more.

"Our team is standing by to help as many restaurants as possible", says CEO John Porter. "Currently we're offering the grants to Ontario-based independent restaurants, but we plan on expanding it across Canada in the coming months."

Get all the details to enroll and qualify for the grant program at restaurants.barterpay.ca

About BarterPay

BarterPay is a social profit enterprise and Canada's only national business-to-business barter system headquartered in Hamilton, Ontario. BarterPay helps businesses obtain the goods and services they need without using cash, instead they barter their idle inventory and/or services. In 2019, BarterPay completed almost $40 million in barter transactions between 4000 business members and growing fast.

About Restaurants Canada

Restaurants Canada is a national, not-for-profit association advancing the potential of Canada's diverse and dynamic foodservice industry through member programs, research, advocacy, resources and events. Before the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, Canada's foodservice sector was a $93 billion industry, directly employing 1.2 million people, providing Canada's number one source of first jobs and serving 22 million customers across the country every day. The industry has since lost hundreds of thousands of jobs and could lose as much as $44.8 billion in sales in 2020 due to the impacts of COVID-19.

SOURCE BarterPay

John Porter, Founder & CEO, BarterPay, [email protected]; Roberto Sarjoo, Director of Marketing & Communications, Restaurants Canada, [email protected]