Kitchen Incubator Grows the Urban Food Economy
YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio -- It’s the world’s oldest industry – agriculture -- and the city’s newest incubator – the Common Wealth Kitchen Incubator, now open at 901 Elm St.
The incubator provides licensed commercial kitchen facilities for vendors to prepare food items for sale to consumers. Owned by Common Wealth Inc., a nonprofit community development organization, the incubator is part of the organization’s Lake-to-River Food Hub program that’s designed to build the local food economy through farmers markets, a food co-op, a buying club and a branding campaign -- the “30 Mile Meal.”
“We have 14 chef food entrepreneurs all ready to start in business and get their businesses certified so they can begin to move ahead and develop as food producing businesses in the regional economy,” says Jim Converse of Common Wealth Inc.
The Kitchen Incubator, four years in the making, officially opened Thursday in a former bar and restaurant that Common Wealth bought in 2009. “It had a lot of facilities already here and equipment in place that we thought we could upgrade and renovate,” Converse says.
The Lake-to-River Food Hub is funded by $600,000 in grants and donations; its goal is creating “55 food-based jobs in the urban economy,” Converse says.
Among the program’s supporters is Huntington Bank, he notes. “We got a grant from the Youngstown Foundation, then money from the Youngstown Community Development Agency, then the Ohio Community Development Finance Fund made a $100,000 grant. And we recently received a Health and Human Services grant in conjunction with the Youngstown Neighborhood Development Corp.”
Food vendors must undergo training before they can use the commercial ovens and stoves, preparation and storage space. Once they are deemed qualified, their training turns to entrepreneurship with lessons in writing a business plan and marketing their products.
Ben Shapiro, manager of the kitchen, says the incubator charges a small hourly fee to share the facilities. “We expect to see caterers, bakers, even a few people making jams and jellies initially,” he says. “The benefit of the commercial kitchen is to have people with all kinds of food businesses who can find what they need here to help them get started.”
Adjacent to the Kitchen Incubator is the Lake-to-River Food Hub’s newly opened Elm St. Café where the incubator clients will sell their products -- “baked goods, smoothies salads, take out items,” Converse says.
“We have people who are doing pizzas, pizzelles, biscotti and a variety of muffins that we hope eventually will be purchased by schools for preschool breakfast programs.”
Twelve area school districts already purchase locally grown food through Lake-to-River food growers’ cooperative, and Youngstown State University recently placed an order to 40 locally grown, cage-free chickens. “Our dream is to get schools, hospitals and stores to start carrying our local products as part of their regular commercial inventory so we can begin to re-localize the [food] part of our economy,” Converse says.
Only 3% of the food purchased in the 16-county region is locally grown food, he says, and if that percentage is increased to 10%, 8,000 new jobs would be created.
Statistics provided by the Lake-to-River Food Hub estimate if local food production increased by 25% to meet local demand, 27,655 new jobs would be created in northeast Ohio with a combined annual payroll of $868 million.
In Athens County, where the nonprofit Food Ventures Center has operated for more than 20 years, the annual economic impact is $28 million, says Leslie Schaller, the center’s director of programs.
Schaller and her associates serve as consultants to Common Wealth.
“We see the potential as incredible,” Schaller says. “Whether it’s parents wanting their kids to eat healthier local food, K-to 12 schools, or shoppers going to farmers markets to connect with farmers, there is tremendous opportunity from growing customer demand for this type of local food supply.”
Copyright 2013 The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.
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