By NANCY VORIS
Indiana Correspondent BLOOMINGTON, Ind. — Hoosier farm families with backyard gardens have no problem creating healthy, delectable salsas, soups, jams, sauces and more from farm-fresh fruits and vegetables.
Maybe friends and relatives tell them, “You should bottle this; you could make a million!” But it isn’t that simple anymore – health and safety codes put a lid on selling food prepared in Mom’s or Grandma’s home kitchen, the humble abode that put the “comfort” in comfort food.
Coming to the rescue are incubator kitchens, a dream for those needing expert advice: institutional-sized, state-of-the-art cooking equipment, bottling and labeling capabilities and, most of all, health department compliance. Entrepreneurs can take their recipe from concept right through to sales all in one place.
It’s enough to make Grandma the next Iron Chef.
The new Bloomington Kitchen Incubator (BKI) will support southern Indiana growers and food entrepreneurs in producing fresh and preserved foods, turning harvests into higher-value specialty foods. They will also provide services to help start-up businesses and growing business through education, resources, technical assistance and shared facilities.
The Local Growers Guild (LGG), participants in the Bloomington Farmers’ Market with an objective to urge residents to buy locally grown food, decided a shared kitchen was the next step in helping its members add value to their products. Bobbi Boos was one member looking to increase the profitability of her meat goats by making sausage, but codes and regulations were daunting.
“She was overwhelmed with health and safety codes, and the high costs of creating those facilities,” said Maggie Sullivan, director of the LGG.
The BKI is being created in cooperation with Bloomington’s Middle Way House for victims of domestic violence.
To raise funds for its organization, Middle Way House started Middle Way Food Works, a local catering business specializing in healthy meals for children and seniors.
Together they pulled together nine agencies to create the Community Food Agency and received a grant of $250,000 to renovate an old Coca-Cola building in downtown Bloomington. Sullivan hopes the kitchen will be functional by July 1.
Participants will share facilities, including the licensed commercial kitchen, storage and offices. But services go beyond the tangible, to specialized business support including finding seed capital, navigating health code requirements, developing appropriate packaging, finding ingredients and marketing products.
The pilot program has accepted 10 local producers who are working on the planning phase of their specialty food business until they can get into the commercial kitchen. Projects include bread, pasta sauce, berry pies, wheat- and dairy-free products and beef products. Participants in the BKI are required to join the LGG for $50 a month, which covers meetings and workshops.
Kitchen use will be approximately $20 per hour for members, and other services are paid on an as-needed basis. Members in the BKI are required to complete health and safety training, including ServSafe.
Those interested in canning products will also have to receive certification or hire a supervisor for the process.
No more applications are being taken until operating funds have been secured, Sullivan said. The LGG is soliciting financial support from businesses and individuals who are “passionate about supporting our local food economy.”
For more information on the BKI, call Boos at 812-333-8287, e-mail bobbiboos@gmail.com or visit www.bloomingtonkitchenincubator.org |
