 Hey guys and welcome to another episode of Stepping Up. I'm your host, Daniel Dubois, and we are here for another week to highlight some of the amazing things our people are doing amidst the ongoing pandemic. We have a very exciting show filled with laughter and vibes with a team from Food Hub 758 who will chat with us about their new app, which is bringing restaurants and customers together virtually. And for LinkUp, we head to Canada for an update with the Consul General, Cheryl Francis. Our first interview explores the world of online business, food, delivery, people and innovation, all available at our fingertips. Food Hub 758 is an online order and delivery platform which connects clients to restaurants through the use of an app on your cell phone. Let's meet the team behind the scenes. Food Hub 758, hello guys and welcome to Stepping Up and our first interview today. And I am here with David Francis and Jumanie Paul, and they represent a fraction of the managing directors of this new exciting app that is about to launch while they have launched Food Hub 758. Good afternoon guys. Good afternoon. How are you? Thank you for having us. Doing great. Thank you. It's my pleasure having you guys here. So, Food Hub 758, who, what, when, why, who's going to start? It's a group of young, technologically minded individuals who came together to create sort of a digital online platform which allows for e-commerce between restaurants and food providers and delivery, well, and the public. So what it does is that we engage restaurants and food providers and we also engage food couriers and delivery drivers. Everybody's working on the platform and able to transact commerce. Nice. And what we're trying to push forward now is e-commerce, whereas everything is cashless. Wow. And it's going with the theme of everything COVID right now is, no, it's in the sky or in the clouds. Yes. And it's, you know, no touch, no contact. Yes. Right? So, David, let us know, what do you think is the most exciting thing if you have to sum it up in one phrase about Food Hub 758? Make your own money. Food Hub is a site that empowers people in St. Lucia, so it gives you the potential to create your own business and basically feed yourself for want of a better term. So we allow persons who have just their home kitchen, persons who would feel like they have to have a storefront and a brick-and-mortar business. They have to pay rent, pay a light bill. That's not the case with Food Hub. You could actually start your business from your phone using the data that you're already paying for a weekly to go on Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram. All of those things, Food Hub is available right there too. So a young, tech-minded person can basically start their own kitchen, from their own phone, start their own business from their own phone, at their own house with basically no overheads. And you know that your product will be fulfilled and delivered to your customer via our delivery drivers using our system in a manner that you would be able to capture your client's data, get feedback, have order reports, order managers. You get a lot of feedback from our process, you know. So it's a way that you can build your business from nothing to something. If I can use that term on TV, if I would be able to use it. Yes. Nothing to something? Nothing to something. I think that's something everybody can identify with. So let's break it down, because you know the technical stuff is not my forte. Let's talk about who is the first person in your app to probably benefit. Because in getting all that background information from you guys, I realize along the chain of, I guess, is it production or the value supply chain, from where it starts to the end goal, there are a lot of people along the lines who could work and who can benefit from being a part of Food Hub 758. So let us know. Let's guess, I guess. So who's the first person to benefit? Well, the first thing I would say about our platform is that first of all, it's available on Android. So it's in the Play Store and in the App Store. So you're Android on your iPhone, you can use it. We're also available online at FoodHub758.com. So the people we target are, again, restaurants and food providers. So you could be, you know, established restaurants, for instance, you know, businesses like Daniel's Soup Shop. There you go. So let's take it from there. Daniel's Soup Shop and I want to come on Food Hub. What is that process like and what is the benefit to me? Well, I think David, you could jump in there. It's a real simple process to become a business on Food Hub. You go to our website, you go to the top right hand corner, you click more and then you click sign up as a business. We get instant notification. Once we get that notification, we can put you on and you can be on and running, having a business running, working, collecting money within 24 hours. And it will allow direct payment via our integrated system, our integrated payment portal. So we allow any business person who has a PayPal, all you have to do is go on PayPal. Once you have a bank account, go on PayPal, sign up. You get a PayPal business account and our system allows you to use that PayPal business account as if you had your own Shopify. So if you did your own website, so your money goes directly to you. We don't touch your money and that's something that people could agree with. They don't want anybody touching their money. If you get your money directly as a business owner, it makes you feel more comfortable. You're not working through us, we are just the vehicle basically to get you where you want to go. Absolutely. And I think another important aspect to what you guys are talking about is the fact that it creates access in ways that have never probably been possible before. Exactly. So as you're saying, anyone could start their business. Anyone. Any restaurant and they have this direct access. So it could be a case where like and you know the daily struggle for a lot of people is like what is there to eat and you know sometimes you find yourself going to the same restaurant because you just don't have the time and you don't want to go through that. But it creates access, right? That's a great point you made because it's basically bringing the physical to the digital. So the same way a food store would go and get a shop front in the mall and decorate their shop front and lay it out in their own way. It's the same thing we offer on our platform. So you get into FoodUp758 and you put probably the pictures of the items you think that are the most popular items and then you can have as many items as you want in there. So we just create a digital platform again, it's like a digital shop front and from that people come in and then based on how you set up your shop, that's how you're going to get activity as well. And going back to your first question, so we have the restaurants and food providers and again you know established restaurants, you can have somebody making cupcakes at their home, look at it as well, sell to their friends, attract your friends. And on the other side of the spectrum we have delivery drivers and couriers, you know, independent as well. And they link up with the stores. You're looking through the gig economy as well. So people have some free time, they want to make some extra money. A lot of taxi drivers right now are coming to us, we know a lot of them as well, they're saying they want to be on board with the system because things are a bit depressed right now. And that offers people a way to make, you know, do buy, you know. Creating opportunities. Exactly, we want to create opportunities. Not only that everybody goes to NIC and you know, has to engage in that economically program, but there are other ways, other things that can be done as well to supplement that for the betterment of everybody. So can you give like a direct pitch to anybody who has a vehicle and probably they now know that they have the opportunity to jump on board with FoodHub and from what I understand, David, is that you could, you don't have to even meet you. The point is that you have an arrangement and the same thing is you get paid for your delivery and I guess the money it hits when it hits the account. That's all you need. So speak to how can, let anybody know as a driver how they can be part as in terms of the delivery part. So drivers, we're careful with who we want as drivers. And we're not saying that because we want to discriminate from anybody. It's a situation where we want our customers to feel comfortable with the persons who are one handling their food and other items and two who are coming to their homes because security is a very serious issue for us. And we take the security aspect very seriously. So we monitor our drivers, we monitor our orders. So what would you say is some of the things you do to, I guess, vet your drivers or the persons you choose to? Yeah, so a driver who wants to apply with our system must have a certificate of character, a police certificate of character, a valid driver's license and valid insurance. That's what we require right now. Okay, that's not bad. It's not bad, but it's a bare minimum to allow our customers to feel comfortable enough. But we have our own checks and balances in the background. Like we monitor our drivers. We monitor all the times we order delivery. So if anything is off, we would know. And I guess you might have a system where you have a zone. So if you have driver A and you're in just the cap estate area. And then if you have somebody more in the castries area, you monitor and you decide. So let's break it down now for the benefit and the opportunity for customers. What is it besides just the access? How can we enjoy Food Hub 758? Well, one of the first ads we launched and it was in the pilot phase as well was the ad with one of the local influencers. And it was talking about, it wasn't a funny way, but it was talking about trying to, you are home and you may not have money for food right now. And your mother's abroad, your sister's abroad, you know, they can come on to the website, login, order the food for you with the card while you're in St. Lucia. And you can either get it delivered to you, you can go for it. Some people will abuse that. That's perfect, you know. And it gives an alternative to, you know, going to Western Union, signing a love line, you know. And even now, people who even give remittances to family, maybe they want to watch that all a bit more and make sure, you know, watch it, you're doing something progressive with it. And you could probably do a cool thing, like have a credit like, you know, somebody just sent $100. So you're like, your food's set for the week, my girl. You know what I'm saying? Something like that. That is actually part of the vision for it. Because people can go beyond just, okay, you're a restaurant, you could sell a plate of food. That's one thing. But we actually see it as going beyond that. Somebody who has, let's say, creativity in them. So you could mix and match products and sell it as something brand new. So you have a basket, you have a bottle of wine, and you have some goodies like chocolates, cakes and whatnot. Separately, you can sell them individually. Yes. But if you put them together, you add value to everything. And then you sell a package. It becomes an experience, you know. So you're creating opportunity. You create opportunity for everybody who has creativity. And I think it's really amazing what technology and, you know, it sounds like a well-thought-through application. And I guess, you know, I have to come back to, as young people, what is the difficulty? Or did you face any difficulties in bringing up this? And you spoke about it. Was this in the making before COVID or after COVID? Give us that story a little bit. Yeah. Funnily enough, it was something that came up organically. It was before COVID. And it's something we're developing with other partners. And obviously, with COVID, that sort of accelerated the whole process. So we kind of came on board and launched it. And we have it here right now. So, yeah. So that's how it came about, more or less. One of the major difficulties, I would say, that we experienced as young professionals, because Dwight, who is our CEO, our executive officer, he is basically a business mind. But he has a day job. Popey, who is our Popey, Jimani? He is basically our CFO. Yeah. He manages our money. But at the same time, he also has a day job. We all have day jobs. So time becomes the main issue. So you have to dedicate. You have to be dedicated at the end of the day. That was our main. That was our main difficulty right in the time. And I think that's the story of most entrepreneurs. You always have to find a way to balance the two, that you have this dream and you want to aspire to something. But then, you know, you have to pay the bills and you need that kind of security. Absolutely. So being able to move through that and, you know, gentlemen and young gentlemen working together and bringing all your different skills sets together. I mean, I want to applaud you guys. And thank you so much for stepping up. We also don't want to forget the ladies of food. We have some very, very key ladies in the background. Our IT genius is a lady. So, and our marketing people are ladies and they're very brilliant young. We don't want to seem like food up is a male oriental. Pachiako come at all. Thumbs up. It's like that sometimes. We have a nice balance. So just to wrap up, let's go through the app. Let's go through the app. Briefly. So I have this on my phone or my laptop. Food helps 7, 5, 8. I'm very hungry. What are you feeling to eat right now? Right now, our customers seem to be gravitating towards Burns food truck. Oh yes. Bigger Burns all the time. What's the name of the place in Bosses? You again? Sugar City or something like that? Well, they have the food. Yeah. They have a name. They call it. Well, no. Sugar City is lower down. Okay. So the place where they sell in the food Bosses, you know. Yes. By a friend of my institution. So the way our app works. So Burns and I heard that he has really good burgers, right? Yeah, Burns has excellent burgers. It's Angus beef and it's really good. Nice. So we find it for burgers David. Okay. So the way our app works is that you go to our home page. Our home page is basically the welcome. It tells you you're at Food Hub. The first thing you'll see is our live chat will pop up on the right side. You can talk directly to us using our live chat if you have any questions whatsoever. But we've made it as simple as possible. So the home page has two bars. You pick whether you want delivery or pickup. And after that, you click the next bar, which is our location bar. Once you click that bar, it takes you directly using Google Maps to the address that you're at. Anywhere in St. Lucia. So the restaurant knows directly where the customer is. And so does the driver. Oh, that's cool. So the customer also have an idea of the distance that the driver will be traveling to deliver his food. Now, as soon as that happens and you actually log in to the website, then once you get that, it'll show you our restaurant. So right now Burns Food Truck pops up. So we pick our favorite orders from Burns Food Truck, which for Popey is the Angus Beef. All right. So once you get the Angus Beef in your cart, Burns Food Truck gives you several options. You can put bacon, blue cheese, cheddar, and all these kind of things. And once you get them into your cart, it's a simple process from there. You just select from these options. And then you also pick your payment method. So although we're trying to move away from the cash system because of COVID and social distancing and whatnot, we want our customers to be very safe. We encourage our drivers to use masks and those kind of things. But we have several payment options. So you encourage them to pay even though it's pickup or delivery online. Online. That's the first point of call. But knowing how things are these days, not everybody has a card. And we don't want restaurants to lose business based on somebody not having a card. So we'll allow the drivers also to accept cash in certain circumstances. Our app actually takes cognizance of that. So once you get into the app, it'll save your location. So the driver will have a very good idea of where the customer is. And they'll also have certain information about the customer that we put in. The customer, their address, their mobile phone number. And if they have discount coupons, we also integrated discounts into our restaurants. And I'm sure you'll have a place where you'll have like my personal, I guess, order history so I could probably frequent that, et cetera. Yes, yes, yes. So once you log in on the app. So once you log in on the app. Exactly. So once you know just about Amazon and all of these apps. It's the same thing. Yeah, it's the same thing. And one thing to say about the cash aspect of it. We know cash is still a bit of a dicey issue. So one thing we want to say as well as at restaurants, we give you full flexibility of accepting the drivers you want to work with. You don't have to work with all our drivers. And then pretty soon they could say, well, you know, these are our designated drivers. Exactly. So we want some opportunities. Those you want to come and work and be on the platform. So that integrates everybody and everybody feels safe. So if you want to do cash deliveries, at least the drivers you work with will do these deliveries for you. And otherwise, like I said, it's like Amazon. So you should be doing everything cashless. You want to ship the culture. So that's why we want to be part of the process going towards e-commerce. Nice. And, you know, the next time it comes about, I mean, COVID is a crisis that came. And like many people say, we have to find the opportunities and crises and make the best of them. And that's what we're trying to do right now with FoodUp75. So put it in the context of Daniel's soup shop. Daniel has a cousin who owns a scooter. Yes. He doesn't have a job right now. Yes. But he could be making $20 a delivery, $12.50 a delivery. And it could add up over time. He could deliver several things at once and make, let's say, $100 for his day. Whereas his bike could have sat down there. He'd have done nothing for the day otherwise. And you can work on your own time. So you switch on as a driver when you're ready. You switch off. It's up to you with your own hours. Like you're done for today. Yeah, you're done for today. You want it as a little squander pile for the day. You want $40. You want to take out your little bird. That's really cool. But once again, guys, thank you so much. And I want to applaud you guys for stepping up during the whole COVID-19. And as we all say, in some places, it's really horrible for everybody. But there's opportunity out there. There's opportunity out there. And it's just to find it. I just want to give one big up to our CEO. Our CEO out there, Dwight Liskairis. He's in the TV room out there. Big up to Dwight. Big up to Dwight. You know, behind the scenes. But thank you so much. So probably next time, we know you'll have drinks seven, five weeks. Well, how are you? I think you're reading out mine now. So drinks. Thank you very much for having us. Thank you very much. We encourage everybody to go to www.foodhub758.com and see how the platform works. Get the apps on the Play Store and the App Store available right now. We're also on IG and Facebook. There you go. There you have it, guys. We'll be right back. Because of COVID-19, I don't know when I'll be able to work again. Because of the coronavirus, we've lost 80% of our revenue. How can the government stop the economy? Because it's unexpected. So we're not like we can blame the government, but we're just uncertain of the future. As a bus driver, how do that stimulus package help you? Since the coronavirus, things have not been the same. I just want to know what would the government do to help single mothers take care of their children? On sending the stimulus package, I would like to know how it would be implemented. Tune in on Sunday as we present the Salusha Economic and Recovery Resilience Plan. There's something there for everyone. Together, we will continue to build a new and stronger Salusha. Welcome back. We just heard from the guys at Food Hub 758, and they wanted me to tell you that you can get the app for free. So go on and download it now. And now it's time for our link-up segment. Today, we will be linking up with Cheryl Francis, Consul General for St. Lucia in Canada. Let us know how the office has continued to work during the pandemic and how they are assisting persons who are interested in coming home. Hello, guys, and welcome to our link-up segment. And for this link-up, we head to Canada, and we're going to have a chat with the Consul General for St. Lucia in Canada. And her name is Miss Cheryl Francis. Hello, Miss Francis. How are you? Hello. Hello, Daniel. I am doing great. Thank you. How's the weather in Canada today? Absolutely beautiful. Not missing anything in St. Lucia. It's always the breeze. The sun is shining, and it's absolutely beautiful. Nice. I'm happy to hear that. So once again, thank you for joining us for our link-up segment. And you know, if link-up, we just try to reach out to anybody doing anything amazing in the whole COVID-19 season. And today we want to talk about what exactly are you up to in your office in Canada and how are you helping St. Lucia and the DAS for at this time? Okay. Thank you, Daniel. First of all, thanks for having me on. I'm more than delighted to say what's going on in my neck of the woods in Canada. And you know, from the inception when Canada, we were all faced with this pandemic, and Canada had to shut its doors like everybody else way back in March. We suddenly had to just rejig the way that we do our operations in the office. And our nationals can say that we have not once stopped on what we had to provide our nationals with. So we changed the way we do things, apart from the fact that we had to shut down our offices. What we did is we transferred all our calls to our mobile phones. All mail come to my home. So it's dealt with in a good fashion. And we also, we have been able to take calls one-on-one with our nationals following up, checking up on them, seeing how they're doing. And you know, it has been good thus far. Nice. You mentioned that basically your office had to kick into gear or different gear when it was, you know, when the whole COVID thing started. Can you just know some of the things that you used to do before COVID and let us know how the pandemic has changed basically your daily operations? Well, the main thing is the face-to-face interactions. Of course, the social distancing and being careful, we have not been able to see our usual nationals come into the office on a daily basis. However, we get to talk to them on a regular basis. But honestly, I must say to you I'm pleased about coming out of all of this. We've been able to streamline our processes a lot better. We've been able to do things a lot more efficiently. You know, for example, even payment structures that, you know, we otherwise had very outdated methods of payment. We had been able to now provide our nationals with different forms of payment because now they can't come into the office to do it. So, you know, the debit, the credit, you know, email, email transfers sometimes. And, you know, all of that has made us realize that, you know, there's a different way to operate. And another thing that has made us very efficient, I would say, is the fact that we no longer have to drive or travel those long distances to get to the office. You know, most of us now we work from home and you find that we wake up earlier so we get into gear earlier. We don't have that time wasted. You don't come home tired where you shut off and, you know, can't really get to the calls. But we have become a lot more efficient in managing those operations. And that has really, you know, shone a light basically on the way we do operations. Nice. So, we know that this week St. Lucia is receiving or is set to receive their first set of commercial flights. And, you know, it has been up in arms and it's something that I think internationally and everybody who's interested in coming home or to St. Lucia is monitoring the situation very closely. So, let us know in Canada how do you assist persons at this point who are interested in coming home and what is the situation right now that obtains in Canada, sorry, that other borders still open or closed? Well, not still open but closed. So, you know, everywhere has their own, you know, I would say intricacies and, you know, what they're doing right now and so how are you assisting St. Lucia in coming home right now? The good thing about Canada, Canada has really managed the pandemic very well, just as St. Lucia has. Our borders are still closed in Canada. There's still a travel ban for citizens of Canada. They basically say non-essential travel and so citizens of Canada have not been travelling as much. And so the airlines especially Air Canada who was slated to start its first commercial flights on July 18th has now cancelled all flights for July. So, we're now looking at the first of August. But we have been encouraging all of our nationals to register with the consulate and so we have a list of all of our nationals, I would hope who have been stranded in Canada and we've been liaising with them very frequently. Up until yesterday I was calling up everyone because I know that most of them would have been concerned that the flights again have been cancelled. And I think more or less for the airlines it's that yes St. Lucia is open and we are ready to receive them but it's coming back with the aircraft being empty and citizens of Canada not travelling because they still have to do a 14-day quarantine when they return from their holiday. So that has not been helping of getting persons from Canada to travel to St. Lucia. So we're looking to see something different happen in August but for us at the consulate we have been contacting our nationals just to update them our websites frequent calls, Facebook we update them on what's going on. So as soon as the cancellations happened yesterday I was on the phone speaking to nationals as to what their possibilities were who was affected who has issues and just basically helping them to go through it. And we're just looking forward to getting somewhere in August. That's sad news because my best friend is in Canada and we were gearing up for the 18th because we were monitoring and stuff like that but maybe that's the thing with this whole pandemic you just never knew and you have to be careful but you still have to try to do what you have to do and you just have to be ready to just to move when the time is ready. So Right now some persons are actually looking at the option of going through the US once you have a US visa I have made several calls to various American Airlines and US Airlines trying out if there's any restrictions for Saint Lucia traveling through the US with a visa to Saint Lucia Yes it's a roundabout we would have preferred a direct flight but they have said to me that there are no restrictions so there are some Saint Lucia now looking at the possibility of going via the US to come home because flights are available from the US to Saint Lucia so I've been getting persons to register to go on. As you say register though can you just speak to the importance of registering because anybody I guess might just ask like why must you have to register to get home and stuff like that so let us know how does the office support kick into gear and why is it important to register Yes so we have asked our nationals once they get in touch with our office we take down all of their particulars so once anything comes up we are able to call them very quickly because sometimes even when you have a repatriation flight it happens within days the last repatriation flight that I was successful in pulling together May 24th went very smoothly for those who had already called into the office so it was easy for me to call them to say can you get ready for May 24th and most of them will overjoy to be able to register so you know they were able to get on and that is the importance once we know you are there we can contact you very easily so update you on anything that is happening you know and you know so most importantly now yesterday I was calling to just urge persons to go on to St Lucia.org the pre arrival form must be done before they can travel before they can even book their flights they need to get approval the reason for that is because of course our government offices in St Lucia have to ensure that they are quarantine space for those nationals coming home either the home quarantine your home has to be inspected so all of these pre checks have to be done so I urge them to go on to register get approval and in Canada as well I have provided a list of covid of centres that they can go to do their covid test so that as well has been provided so they can go get a test within 7 days of travel but first and foremost they need to register then get the test and then they can head home. Wow and I think it is important to remember that it is absolutely not business as usual you cannot, before you could have just book your flight tonight and then the next day or the next a few days you could just hop on a flight and you never had to worry about these things but there are so many besides this red tape all of what you mentioned so all of that prevents people from doing exactly what they wish they could and how they want to. Like our Prime Minister even mentioned a couple nights ago on his update we sort of went through that with 9-11 all of these things had to change because of a situation and it takes all of us to have that buy in, all of us to take our precautions. This is a we thing, this is something that we all have to do together to make it work and it's the same thing so if you register, if you do all of the things that the officials are asking to do, I think it will all help us especially those on the front line, you know we always have to remember them. Thanks Francis, we just want to say thank you so much for joining us today. I mean I was very much so enlightened about the whole process and how St. Lucian's need to register and if they want to come home, this is the process because any of the government of St. Lucia at the same time is ensuring the safety of everybody while trying to make everybody happy at the same time so we need to register as you say so that we could see when the opportunity pops up it could just get to go. All of the information that we have to share you know and just knowing that they have the support in Canada from our office you know some of them you know they're very frustrated you know and we understand that so somebody to share that with as well I know it doesn't help much but you know the support is there. So Miss Francis thanks again so much any final words from you and your office as we come to the end of the link up segment. Yes I mean I just want to assure our nationals who are stranded in Canada and those living in Canada that we are functional our office is open even 24-7 some persons call me after hours so we want to assure you that we are there for you and you know to continue to liaise the office we will continue to provide you with updates we are here to support you and we hope that it all works out well for all of us in the end and let us all just do this together and support each other. Thank you. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen the consul general has spoken Thank you so much and you enjoy the rest of your day. You too. Thank you Bye bye. I had a lot of fun doing this week's instalment of stepping up getting to chat with the guys from food hub 758 for stepping up to Miss Francis and the office in Canada. Thank you. If you know anyone in your community or anyone who has an amazing idea feel free to send me an email at steppingup758 at gmail.com I'm Daniel Dubois. Join us next time and don't forget to keep stepping up.