Farm Fresh Rhode Island blog

Help us get an Incubator Kitchen off the Ground in RI!
Go back a few decades and RI had many certified food processing sites for food harvested from RI farms and waters. There were places for, well, you name it: canning tomatoes, pickling cucumbers, preserving fruits, making cheese and yogurt, baking and roasting, butchering meat, shucking oysters, and filleting fish. But today’s reality is much spottier. As bigger-is-better policies pushed the national and global consolidation of our food supply, there was reduced support for local farms and food processing sites and many closed.

With a reawakening today to the economic, environmental and basic social value of local food production, RI entrepreneurs are rising to the opportunity. Farm Fresh routinely offers guidance and support to folks interested in creating or building upon their food business. Through our Open Kitchen initiative we aim to expand the diversity of foods produced in RI using ingredients grown in RI, thereby providing a livelihood for more Rhode Islanders. But the obstacles associated with starting a food business are staggering. There are start-up costs for ingredients, equipment, and licensing, plus the trouble of finding a certified kitchen and a consistent customer base. Because there are so many obstacles, there are also few success-story mentors who can help.

Enter Hope & Main
In order to build a robust local food system we need more infrastructure, like dedicated kitchens for processing local foods. We are thrilled that RI’s first fully dedicated incubator kitchen, Hope & Main, is now being planned for the former Main Street School site in Warren, RI. Based on incubator models across the nation, this shared-use facility will be rented out by the hour or month to provide kitchen equipment and storage, along with professional services, mentoring and education to ensure that local businesses mature and are eventually prepared to stand alone.

Lisa Raiola, Executive Director of the new not-for-profit organization that hopes to create the kitchen, tells Farm Fresh, “Hope & Main is intent to build upon the Farm Fresh mission through a series of cooperative partnerships. We aim to work with Farm Fresh to supply the members of our kitchen incubator with fresh local ingredients and to expand the reach of Farm Fresh’s educational and nutrition programs to more Rhode Islanders.”

If you might be interested in sharing a kitchen or know someone else who would, then please fill out the Hope & Main Needs Assessment Survey. Help this proposed incubator kitchen get off the ground!

Farm Fresh knows there is a serious need for a dedicated incubator kitchen space in the state. Please pass this information to others who may be interested in the kitchen, your feedback is valuable in planning for this venture! Email Christie with questions.