Supporting Small Food Businesses to Build Resilience During Crises

Abstract

Small food businesses are vital to delivering affordable, nutritious food to low-income communities. Yet food systems are under threat from multiple stressors. During the Covid-19 pandemic, government support was directed at maintaining business activity, so understanding how this affected small food businesses offers insights for future policy design. Most policies aligned primarily with the short-term financial needs of larger businesses, leaving a gap for timely support for small enterprises. The recurrent nature of shocks means that such businesses also require longer-term agility to respond to shocks. Interventions to build this capacity can be integrated into nutrition programming.