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www.gourmetnews.com n JANUARY 2020 GOURMET NEWS 7 2 Queens Incubator Hatches Hundreds of Food Businesses By Greg Gonzales "If I didn't have Katherine, it would've been scary," said Chocolatier Milène Jardine. "She helped me set up the licenses I need, she's so connected – she just knows! She has good instinct, knowledge and experience. I went through three different incubator pro- grams, but I knew this was the one." Jardine is a client of Entrepreneur Space, a food business incubator in the Queens Bor- ough of New York City, and its Founder and Managing Consultant, Katherine Gregory, who helped her grow her eponymous brand of couture, travel-inspired truffles and bars. The line is now selling in 15 stores, spas, florists, co-branded labels and soon, private airlines. "They partner with you, and they're be- hind you the whole way," Jardine said. "If you're smart enough to ask questions, you'll succeed." Since 2010, Entrepreneur Space has been giving local food producers the chance to take their businesses out of their home kitchens and spread new wings in a commer- cial production facility. It also provides pro- fessional consulting and staff for clients, along with job training and employment for disadvantaged populations. The incubator has helped hundreds of local producers – 672 clients since the start and currently 135 of them – grow enough to find a copacker or start production in their own independent fa- cilities. Entrepreneur Space is the passion project of Gregory, who has 45 years of experience in the food industry. It's now funded 90 per- cent by revenue, she said, and the other 10 percent comes from a mix of local, state and national grants. But the idea she had for the incubator started when she was working with a trade organization called Roundtable for Women in Foodservice, at the nexus be- tween nonprofit and for-profit food business. "I came across so many women who were looking to start food businesses – not sure what they needed to do, how to do it," she said. "So I started informally mentoring, gave seminars, things like this. I got a good understanding of what was going on with them and what their needs were, so I filled the need for these women, but, since I don't like being sexist, it was men, too." These new business owners needed space to work in, but they also needed guidance on licensing, insurance and how to take their businesses further, she said. In addition to helping them with those issues, Gregory wanted to help them with staffing and job training. Instead of taking that on herself, she chose to find a nonprofit organization that could collaborate. She found that in a place called Artisan Baking Center, a nonprofit in Long Island City, that was housed in a build- ing complete with a large kitchen space, stor- age space and classrooms. "They did the job training program during the day. I would come in and work with them and rent the kitchen at night," she said. "The best part about the job training program was that I would be able to take these graduates and filter them in with the entrepreneurs, the food-pre- neurs, giving them access to staff. In the beginning, because many job training programs had paid intern- ships, they would have free staff." "It was a real win-win situation there," Gregory added. "You had an equipped kitchen, and the nonprofit running the job training program got extra income at night from renting out. And at the same time, their graduates were getting on-the-job train- ing, whether through a paid internship or di- rectly paid by the entrepreneurs." Eventually, Artisan Baking Center dropped its culinary training program, but that worked out for the better when the Queens Economic Development Corporation moved into the space. "Then we created a full-fledged incubator where the kitchen was rented 24/7," Gregory said. "Before that, it was only rented in the evenings and week- ends." To replace the training program, the two organizations partnered with Fortune Soci- ety, a program dedicated to providing sup- port and job training for formerly incarcerated people. That's largely where the kitchen staff at Entrepreneur Space comes from. And because they have hands-on com- mercial kitchen experience, they can provide support for the incubator's clients. "All our clients get two hours of staff time, free, every shift," Gregory said. Those staff members might be washing dishes, chopping vegetables, scooping cookies, packaging – whatever the client needs. And because the staff members have been trained in a com- mercial kitchen, they can show clients how to use the equipment on site, whether it's a 20- to 80-quart mixer, hearth oven, proofer, sheeter or a technique to be more efficient. The difference could be 120 dozen cookies in a shift versus 20 dozen in the same shift, Gregory explained, "which means you've amortized the cost of that shift considerably, which means you're probably making more of a profit." Entrepreneur Space clients get help out- side the kitchen as well, including access to several consultants, most of whom are cur- rent or former business owners and experts in their fields. They include marketing con- sultants, strategy consultants and financial assistants. The consultants help each client work through common problems such as un- derstanding worker's compensation and other kinds of insurance, how to build a brand identity online and in the physical marketplace, how to budget ingredients and price products, how to build a long-term plan and listen to the needs of their target con- sumers. They also help the fledgling entre- preneurs get into street markets and retail. From inspected licenses to ingredients la- bels and kitchen assistance, it's these indi- vidualized teaching moments that set this incubator apart from the rest, Gre- gory explained. "When I say incubator, I'm really fussy about this," she said. "Most commercial kitchens, shared-use kitchens, are for profit. An incubator refers to a space that's nurturing. If you have an incubator for a chick, if you have an incubator for a baby, it's warm, it's comforting, you're being fed until you get big enough to grow. I'm looking at growing businesses, taking someone who's possibly pre-revenue or somebody who's been cooking out of their home for five years and selling to their friends and family, and take them to a level where they give up their day job and follow their pas- sion. I'm into the mentoring, the nurturing, the education, the slap on the wrist when they're doing something wrong, maybe say- ing, 'I don't know how you're going to suc- ceed,' because my goal is their success. That's, to me, what an incubator really is. It's that space that is forming a business that will eventually grow and leave the incubator. We don't want somebody here for the rest of our lives." With that range of available resources, it's rare that clients hang up the kitchen towel. Some of the businesses limp along, Gregory explained, but the point of the incubator is to get a limping business to lengthen its stride. "We do all sorts of things to get someone to, instead of coming in here once every four months, to come in once a month," said Gre- gory, adding that some clients start out a little ahead of themselves, wanting to sell 1,000 pieces a week before they're ready. "I'm like, you're not ready for that. I'd like you to sell to a store, to start with four stores at two dozen cookies every week. If you can do that, can you get it to three dozen cookies per week? Then, can we add a couple more stores? Eventually, you know, Stop N Shop wants 1,000 cookies a week! At this point, they can handle it. They know what they're doing." One brand sprouting into its own facility from Entrepreneur Space this year is LUV Michael, a granola brand that employs autistic adults. The busi- ness started in the kitchen of Demitri Kessaris and Lisa Liberatore, two physicians who wanted to ensure that their autistic son, Michael, could have a fulfilling career. With the help of Entrepreneur Space, the brand grew to employ 10 full-time "granologists," developed a more marketable product with a grab-and-go bark-style granola and now sells in more than 60 retailers, including Star- bucks, D'Agostino Supermarkets, and Fresh and Co. "The beauty of Entrepreneur Space to me is the help and mentoring, and the opportu- nity to have space and infrastructure," said Clare Davis, who handles communications for LUV Michael. "You never know who you're going to meet there." For brands that need a little extra care, Gre- gory said Entrepreneur Space has added a sort of boot camp, where the team takes on four clients for an intensive three-month mentoring program. They get an even closer look at their website, expenses, return on investment for marketing and more. Clients get homework like adding more images to their websites, writing press releases and making sell sheets. Now that they've completed the pilot program, Gregory said they're planning on an even bet- ter one later this year, and to make it happen more than once or twice a year. "We help people live their dream," Gre- gory said. "They've got a dream, they've got a passion. We work with that passion to get them to succeed. They've got to make money in their business – if they don't make money, it's not a business, and it becomes a frustration for them. We're looking to take on their dream, help them make money and live it." 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