These Columbus groups are opening a shared kitchen to support local small businesses
Columbus organizations are partnering to help nurture culinary talent and support food entrepreneurs with a new shared commercial kitchen.
The Food Mill, the Open Door Community House and the Columbus Parks and Recreation Department are among a number of donors and partners working to create The Food Mill Shared Kitchen at the Fox Community Center next to Fox Elementary School.
Students graduating from the Open Door Community Culinary Program will have access to the shared kitchen along with the general public.
After Open Door began culinary arts training in 2008, the organization quickly noticed a lot of the people who were low-income that the program served were interested in opening their own businesses, Kim Jenkins, executive director of Open Door, told the Ledger-Enquirer.
“We spent about a decade really taking a hard look at what we can do to truly help people…coming out of our program to take that next step,” she said.
They wanted to help individuals open and sustain a food business, Jenkins said, which led to partnering with The Food Mill, StartUP Columbus and other partners.
“Part of our mission at The Food Mill is to contribute to economic growth and development, not only in the neighborhood of the Mill District, but also throughout the city of Columbus,” Olivia Amos, executive director of The Food Mill, told the Ledger-Enquirer.
Using the shared kitchen
The first phase of the project is expected to be completed this August, Amos said, coinciding with the start of the school year.
Organizers are excited by this prospect because the shared kitchen will also be used by The Food Mill to teach their community cooking classes and their Farm to School program.
Students can utilize the kitchen for culinary classes and the community garden outside as a “living classroom” as part of the Farm to School curriculum, Amos said.
This shared kitchen gives the Open Door Culinary Program participants the ability to focus on the products they want to develop and learn how to sell them in a broader way by making larger orders, Jenkins said.
“The shared kitchen really gives an opportunity for people to take what they love, what they know to do, and just be able to blow it up into a business for the community,” she said.
In phase one, members can utilize the shared kitchen space by the hour, Amos said. There are different membership levels depending on the amount of time needed for individuals’ businesses.
“Our hopes are that eventually this space will allow people to continue to grow their business where they might be limited to the capacity if they’re working out of their home or another place,” she said.
The second phase of the project will open space for baking kitchens, Amos said.
“There’s a lot of bakers working out of their home,” she said. “And so we really want to make sure that we have a specific area for them.”
Supporting sustainable businesses
Jenkins encourages individuals to go through the Open Door Community Culinary Program.
It is a 20-week training program that focuses on life skills as well as culinary arts. There are two sessions per year, and students learn culinary skills from a local professional chef at their kitchen just outside of Columbus.
“(The shared kitchen) will give us an opportunity to hopefully do (training) a little closer to Open Door,” Jenkins said.
Once an individual graduates from the culinary program, she said, they can move into the incubator if they have a desire to open a business.
Individuals in the incubator will participate in 9 weeks of StartUP Columbus’ CO.STARTERS+ program. After this portion of incubator program is complete, participants have access to the shared kitchen space to develop products and launch businesses.
Participants will have access to resources, opportunities and mentors to help them while they put their businesses together, Jenkins said.
Ideally, Open Door hopes the businesses launched from the incubator create wealth and ensure participants and their family remain out of poverty.
“And as you begin to launch (the business), hopefully sustainably,” she said. “So that it can be a sustaining business for you.”
Mike Haskey contributed to this story.
This story was originally published April 24, 2024 at 5:00 AM.
