My name is Gary Freeman, and I am the owner of Gorilla Fries. Gorilla Fries is a food truck that has been serving delicious food at various venues throughout the province of Manitoba since 2018. I expressed my interest in purchasing a food truck to Debbie McElhinney from the Surrender Claim Trust in Peguis. She suggested I contact First Peoples Economic Growth Fund in Winnipeg about their zero interest loans for businesses.

I contacted FPEGF and they set up an appointment with the loans manager, Tom Thordarson. Tom was very supportive of my business idea, and he explained what FPEGF needed from me to get approved for a loan and what grants might be available to me as well. You do not just apply, and it is approved, you must supply lots of information with supporting documents and a business plan.

I hired a consulting company to prepare the business plan for Gorilla Fries and that made the process much easier. Once all the documentation and the business plan were submitted it didn’t take long for the loan to be approved.

Tom even assisted me with applying for a grant from Surrender Claim Trust to offset the amount of loan I needed to apply for. Gorilla Fries had only been in operation 1½ seasons when COVID-19 hit. Operating a food truck during covid was a financial struggle to say the least. There were no rodeos, fairs, pow wows, markets, music festivals at all in 2020 and most of 2021, so our major revenue sources were gone. This coupled with the increase in fuel and food costs made the struggle even more challenging.

I tried other ways to generate revenue, but I could not generate the revenue needed to cover the operating costs and long-term liabilities. If it wasn’t for my FPEGF loans officer, Tiffany Monkman telling me about the COVID-19 Contingency Funding and helping me with the application, Gorilla Fries probably would not have survived. I am very thankful for the support I received.

Gorilla Fries is a seasonal business that my wife and I operate from June 1st until October 31st. Even though Gorilla Fries has not financially recovered from the pandemic we are optimistic that 2023 will be a good year. We really enjoy taking our food truck to pow wows and rodeos, and we are hopeful that we will get more bookings for Gorilla Fries at these types of venues.