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Long Island food company named Ex-Im ‘Small Business Exporter of the Year’

2014_0425_ExImQuiches Export-Import Bank Chairman and President Fred Hochberg presents the Small Business Exporter of the Year award to Susan Axelrod of Love & Quiches Gourmet. (Liz Roll photo)


Love & Quiches Gourmet, a Freeport, N.Y.-based 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 on Thursday.

“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 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.”

When Love & Quiches applied for export financing, Ex-Im Bank’s small business export credit insurance, backed by the federal government, provided the reassurance needed for Wells Fargo Bank to advance funds against the company's foreign receivables and improve its cash flow, the Ex-Im Bank said in a news release.

“Our ability to build Love and Quiches Gourmet was made possible, in large measure, by our partnership with Ex-Im Bank,” said company 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.”

Axelrod began making quiches in her home kitchen in 1973 and marketing them in New York City. The company has expanded into a full line of dessert products and recently moved into a new state-of-the-art manufacturing facility.

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.

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack has said that informing farmers and rural entrepreneurs about the Export-Import Bank's programs is one of the goals of the "Made in Rural America" initiative.

Export-Import Bank Small Business InsuranceLove & Quiches Gourmet