Sean: So from Erika, one of the, actually a really good question. As a business owner, how have you taken care of your people since the pandemic?

JC: I just want to share this realization. Because well when the pandemic started, there's a lot, there's a lot of things. It started with of course, we gave them food, food packs for our people. We gave cash out of pocket as well, aside from the fact that even if there are no events. There were hundreds of events that instantly postponed and canceled during the pandemic.

We began with like, we had inventory in our stockroom worth 4 to 5 million of perishable goods that were going to rot away, which I can’t charge to my clients because I also feel for them. I also understand that this is something that they didn't want. So we did everything to try to sell off the goods, all of that. And then what happened was, the main thing that we did was to try to give them job opportunities.

When we started doing the grocery business, the selling of the groceries, people wanted to order it cooked. So we went back to our core, Juan Carlo to-go because the core of our business is we have this new tagline for the pandemic, this campaign “Life is still worth celebrating”. Because we still want to be with our clients that even during these challenging times, away from the big venues and the bright lights to a more intimate occasion, we can still deliver the Juan Carlo experience through Juan Carlo to-go.

So that's the first thing that we did. We focused on our core strength, because that's really how we're going to help our people by giving them jobs, by giving them something to do. We really try to look back over our clients that are affected by the pandemic and we focused on them. And then aside from that, of course we gave money during the time when there was really a lockdown completely. I think that was a month that we didn’t completely operate. So during that month we gave cash. We also gave food to them.

So the thing that we're focusing now on is health. Health is the number one. It's the major concern right now for our people. So the different things we did, number one, we have pre-ordered vaccines for them. So we plan as an organization to place orders for all of our employees. Of course they have their right if they want to take the vaccine, but we are also educating them about the benefits of the vaccine. Hopefully they all get it. Because number one, we've seen, and we've proven that the economy bounces back, but we need to have me, my parents, the leadership and all of our team, we need to be vaccinated. We need to be protected to be ready when the economy bounces back. When the restrictions are loosen, we will be ready.

We also do point to point shuttle service for our people to keep them safe. Do testing for them when we have events. And then everything, we do all the different types of sanitation in the office. The disinfectants that are for commercial grade. We use Sanivir disinfectants, we use UV lights, everything. Because we’re scared. We honestly live in our commissary as well so we really try to make sure they're safe. And our key people, even with not much duties, to be honest, I still let them go to work. We let them clean our new warehouse, anything.

Right now we're doing training. Training in innovation. Earlier, I just came from that, we innovated, I think 30 dishes today, different courses. And I was with my team. My sales team was tasting the food. The kitchen team went to work today because they cooked the new innovative food. So we really need them when we come back when it bounces back. And safety is so important because they risk their lives every day when they deliver orders, when they come to work. So we want to reward them as well.

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