Uber Eats launches £250k fund to support Black-owned restaurants
As well as funding to help grow their businesses, restaurants will receive special mentoring from Enterprise Nation
Uber Eats has announced a cash boost of £250k for Black-owned restaurants across the UK as the company “significantly” expands its Black Business Fund in 2022.
In collaboration with Enterprise Nation and Be Inclusive Hospitality, the Uber Eats Black Business Fund will award the fund to 25 small Black-owned businesses, and at least half of the grants will go to small businesses outside of London.
As well as funding to help grow their businesses, restaurants will receive special mentoring from Enterprise Nation.
Black-owned restaurants with fewer than five locations can apply for the fund between 14 October and 25 November.
According to research on gov.uk, just 5% of small or medium sized businesses in the UK are run by people from minority backgrounds, with Black and Mixed ethnicity groups the least likely to be self-employed.
Lorraine Copes, founder of Be Inclusive hospitality, said: “The launch of this initiative is really timely. The theme for Black History Month this year is Time for Change: Action Not Words’, and this fund, and mentorship will help in a very tangible way to remove some of the barriers that Black business owners continue to face, during an extremely difficult trading period.”
Emma Jones MBE, founder of Enterprise Nation, added: “Some businesses in the industry like those in the Black business community had barely recovered from the impact of the pandemic before the next crisis hit. The financial support is phenomenal and the mentoring is about helping them to focus on the elements of their business that they can control.”
Matthew Price, General Manager at Uber Eats UK and Ireland, said: “Given the barriers that Black owners face, we are incredibly proud to expand our support of small Black-owned businesses across the country. Through this fund we want to help the next generation of chefs and entrepreneurs thrive.”
In 2021, Uber announced a $10m (£9m) investment to support Black-owned small businesses on the platform around the world. In the UK, Uber Eats first launched the Black Business Fund in 2021 awarding 10 lots of £5,000 grants to restaurants across the country.
