Love & Quiches Gourmet Named Ex-Im Bank Small Business Exporter of the Year

WASHINGTON, April 24, 2014 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Love & Quiches Gourmet, a Freeport, NY-based small business that sells quiches and desserts to customers around the world, received the Small Business Exporter of the Year award from the Export-Import Bank of the United States (Ex-Im Bank). The award was presented at the Bank's 39th Annual Conference in Washington, D.C.

"Helping small businesses like Love & Quiches grow and compete on the global stage is at the heart of the Bank's mission," said Ex-Im Bank Chairman and President Fred P. Hochberg. "From its start in a Long Island kitchen, this company has steadily grown to sell its products to customers around the world. I am pleased that the Bank was able to provide the insurance that Love & Quiches Gourmet needed to finance its growing export sales."

Like many small businesses, Love & Quiches Gourmet depends on lines of credit and other forms of working capital to finance and grow its business. As lenders consider applications for extended credit, they can often be wary of any revenue from foreign sales, particularly when it comes to small businesses. When Love & Quiches applied for export financing, Ex-Im Bank's small business export credit insurance, backed by the U.S. government, provided the reassurance needed for Wells Fargo Bank to advance funds against the company's foreign receivables and improve its cash flow.

"Our ability to build Love and Quiches Gourmet was made possible, in large measure, by our partnership with Ex-Im Bank," said Love and Quiches Gourmet Chairwoman and Founder Susan Axelrod. "That experience inspired my book With Love and Quiches: A Long Island Housewife's Surprising Journey From Kitchen to Boardroom which chronicles both our 40 year history and how Small Business can succeed and compete on a global stage."

Since Susan Axelrod began making quiches in 1973, the company has expanded into a full line of dessert products and recently moved into a new state-of-the-art manufacturing facility located in Freeport, NY. Love & Quiches Gourmet's export volume increased from $4.9 million in 2012 to $7.2 million in 2013. The company is targeting a 10 percent increase in export sales for their fiscal year 2014.

Ex-Im Bank's 2014 Annual Conference will focus on the global business environment and prospects for growth. The event will feature prominent members of the business and government community including Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker, Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz, Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack, Former Treasury Secretary and President Emeritus of Harvard University Lawrence Summers, Wells Fargo Chairman and CEO John Stumpf, SpaceX CEO and Chief Designer Elon Musk, Pemex CEO Emilio Lozoya Austin, and Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe. A full listing of speakers, panelists, and moderators is available on Ex-Im's website: www.exim.gov.

About Ex-Im Bank
Ex-Im Bank is an independent federal agency that creates and maintains U.S. jobs by filling gaps in private export financing at no cost to American taxpayers. The Bank provides a variety of financing mechanisms, including working-capital guarantees, export-credit insurance and financing to help foreign buyers purchase U.S. goods and services. In the past fiscal year alone, Ex-Im Bank earned for U.S. taxpayers more than $1 billion above the cost of operations.

In FY 2013, Ex-Im Bank approved more than $27 billion in total authorizations to support an estimated $37.4 billion in U.S. export sales and approximately 205,000 American jobs in communities across the country. For the year, the Bank approved a record 3,413 transactions-- or 89 percent--for small-businesses. Small business exporters can learn about how Ex-Im Bank products can help them increase foreign sales at http://go.usa.gov/ZVTd. For other information about Ex-Im, visit www.exim.gov.

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SOURCE Export-Import Bank of the United States