Canadian restaurant supply company raising money for Ukraine

Restaurant supply company helps Ukraine CTV's Nate Vandermeer on the Brockville company looking past its own trouble in the pandemic, to help Ukraine.

BROCKVILLE, ONT. — A Canadian restaurant supply company is raising money for Ukraine despite their own lost revenue over the past two years, with the aim to get more companies and industries to do the same.

Russell Hendrix supplies restaurants across the country with everything from refrigeration units, to utensils. Since March 2020, their industry has taken a big hit.

"At the start of the pandemic, we were down 50 to 60 per cent in total volume," said CEO Tom Pitera. "We felt the effects along with everybody else in the industry. Nobody knew if this was going to last for 30 days, 90, days, nine months or two years."

The company had to lay off workers and shut down showrooms, including the Brockville location, as COVID took hold.

Now with restrictions being lifted, they are eager to get back on track.

"We're really optimistic right now as to the recovery of the industry and all we hope is that there are no further shutdowns, no further restrictions," Pitera said, noting approximately 100 of those laid-off workers have returned to work.

"Our customers' customers want to get back in and enjoy being out in restaurants and sitting in restaurants," he added.

But with the world watching the events unfolding in Ukraine, Pitera realized their industry could help, even though their company is still recovering themselves.

"For 60 years Russell Hendrix has supported the customer base that basically takes care of their customers," Pitera said. "That's what the food service industry is all about, taking care of people."

Not being able to send supplies to Europe, they decided to raise money instead.

This week, they launched a campaign to help the Canadian Red Cross, donating $25,000 immediately with a $50,000 minimum commitment, and offering up to five per cent of their online sales from their two websites every week.

"I suspect that weekly donation could be anywhere between $10,000 and $20,000," Pitera said. "It could be higher than that, depending on how much volume comes through our websites."

The company is also matching each employee donation up to $250. Employees have already donated $2,000 in the last two days alone, according to Luke Vanderbaaren, Russell Hendrix director of procurement in Brockville.

"There's tremendous amount of people that are forced out of their homes and anything we can do to help is what we are trying to do here,” he said. “The support from our staff and our supplier community has been tremendous so far."

"What we are trying to promote is a groundswell for the food service industry in Canada to step up and to help those two and a half million people right now that are really in dire need of financial and emotional support," Pitera added.

Pitera said the campaign was put together in about five days, and it took less than 36 hours to get set up with the Red Cross.

"We really do appreciate what the Red Cross is doing on the ground there and hopefully our financial support will help them in that endeavour, he said.

"Yeah, we're still hurting from the pandemic, but it was the right thing to do and the right time to do it."