Launch Lenawee’s entrepreneurial program picked a great time to move forward with a commercial kitchen incubator this year. They aren’t the first this year but, with so much disruption in how we deliver and consume food products, it’s impressive that they have continued to move forward. I have always been a fan of creating these shared spaces to help food entrepreneurs scale their businesses efficiently and cost effectively. In smaller markets in particular, it is one of the initiatives that can turn a local business into an exporter and help them scale.
How did I find out about it? A mention in a February 2020 newsletter from Lenawee Now caught my eye, and l couldn’t stop thinking about it as we all read the stories of struggling restaurants, good trucks, and farmers’ markets and disrupted supply lines. Many communities will be redoubling their efforts to support small businesses, and this might be a worthy path to explore. Here are some links you may find helpful.
This is the article I linked to when I got Lenawee Now’s email. It explains who is running the incubator: https://www.lenaweenow.org/kitchenincubator/
This is the link to Launch Lenawee, the broader entrepreneurial support network: https://launchlenawee.org/
This is an interesting report about the state of the kitchen incubator industry, which might help you decide if it’s a good fit for your community: https://econsultsolutions.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/Kitchen-Incubators-2019_1.14.20.pdf
And this is Lenawee Now, the economic development organization for Lenawee County in Southeastern Michigan: https://www.lenaweenow.org/