shared kitchens

At the Smart Kitchen Summit (SKS), we love to highlight people who are forging new paths in the food world. But for those who are trying to jumpstart their own CPG food business, or scale up production, finding affordable commercial kitchen space can stop their idea in its tracks.

Ashley Colpaart is trying to lower that barrier to entry with The Food Corridor; a platform which connects budding food entrepreneurs with commercial production space. She’ll be speaking about how her startup is harnessing technology to disrupt the specialty food industry at SKS this October in Seattle.

To get you excited, we asked Colpaart a few questions about how she envisions the future of new food businesses, which CPG trends are on the rise, and why she considers her company “the Mindbody of food.” Read the full Q&A below.

This interview has been edited for clarity and content.

Q: How is the Food Corridor unique compared to other shared kitchen startups?

A: The Food Corridor is a tech-enabled platform that lets shared kitchens across the country operate more efficiently and grow more food businesses. Without owning any physical space, The Food Corridor is powering 80+ shared kitchen facilities across the US and Canada. Our network of co-cooking spaces is providing 4000+ chefs, caterers, food trucks, craft food producers, and delivery-only concepts a space to legally produce food and grow their dream business.

Q: You recently launched the app The Kitchen Door — what exactly does it do?

A: At The Food Corridor, our mission is to enable efficiency, growth and innovation in local food. Since our launch, we’ve done this through our kitchen management software that helps kitchen managers better operate all the moving parts of a shared commercial kitchen. This month, we are excited to launch our newest app: The Kitchen Door.

On a daily basis, food businesses contact us searching for a clean, friendly, and stable place to launch and grow their businesses. In response to this demand, our team has built the most comprehensive database of trusted commercial kitchens who have space available to rent.

The Kitchen Door is the go-to place for food entrepreneurs to search and contact an exclusive kitchen space to produce their goods.

Q: You’ve likened The Food Corridor to MindBody — the cloud-based management software for wellness classes — but for shared kitchen space. Why do you make that comparison?

A: Liking The Food Corridor to Mindbody actually led us to secure one of our favorite angel investors. In the early 2000’s his wife encouraged him to invest in a small software company that was helping yoga studios manage and book its yogis. It provides cloud-based business management software for the wellness services industry.

Similarly, The Food Corridor is a cloud-based business management software for the food industry. Our software handles tasks unique to a shared kitchen like hourly bookings, equipment rentals, compliance management, monthly plans, invoicing, and bill payment. The removal of these tasks, which used to be manual, frees up our kitchen owners to focus on increasing their number of renters, incubating clients and providing innovative services and programs.

Q: How do you see the cottage food industry space evolving over the next 5 to 10 years?

A: This may ruffle some people’s feathers, but I’m of the belief that the home kitchen is not equipped for growing a food business, specifically when it comes to scalability and consistency. The commercial kitchen, which is subject to safety standards pertaining to food and energy usage, is an important part of maintaining public health. That said, the cottage industry plays an important role for hobbyists following their passion for food and for budding food entrepreneurs testing recipes and getting direct feedback from consumers.

Like the rise in co-working spaces, I predict a rise in “co-cooking” community-based commercial kitchen spaces. Paying a monthly membership fee to access a commercial kitchen that covers cleaning, water, waste, electricity and equipment repairs definitely takes a lot of stress out of the mix for food producers. With the rise in automation and the total cost of production of professionally-made food, the domestic kitchen may be becoming obsolete. I see co-cooking, community, and shared-use kitchens as the meeting places, gyms, and yoga studios of the future.

Q: What’s one of the most unique/bizarre foods you’ve seen made in one of The Food Corridor’s shared kitchen spaces?

A: Well, we are based in Colorado, so we see our share of marijuana or CBD inspired products — we are at a pretty high elevation after all. Pet foods seems to be super popular (you first-world dogs, you!) and of course, the sustainable and insect protein companies seem to also be making a go at it. I tend to get excited about the “delivery only” and “pop-up restaurant” concepts that we see taking hold.

Oh, and we do collect a list of creative food company names that we share across our team. Our favorites include: Fast and Curryous, Pride Enjoy, Subtle Tea, For Goodness Cakes, and Bruce Tea (to name a few)! There is not a lack of creativity in the food industry. That’s why we like it here.

Thanks, Ashley! If you want to see her speak more about the future of the cottage food industry and commercial kitchens, make sure to get your tickets to the Smart Kitchen Summit in Seattle on October 8-9th.

Say you’ve spent the last months or years perfecting the world’s best recipe for Sriracha-flavored popcorn or drinkable soup (yes, that’s a thing) and now you want to bring it to the masses. Your family and friends love it, you’ve saved up some money or secured a line of credit, and while you’ve never started a food business before, you’re ready to strike out on that path to become the next Chobani or Stumptown.

What’s the first thing you need to do?

Ashley Colpaart, CEO of The Food Corridor

Chances are, it’s making the move out of your own kitchen and into a commercial space, a hurdle that often stops budding food entrepreneurs in their tracks. A shame really, since the typical commercial kitchen goes unused over 50% of the time. Enter The Food Corridor: an online platform where food businesses can connect with and choose commercial production spaces and gain access to tools like scheduling and booking, payment processing, and health code documentation. Airbnb is a co-living space, WeWork is a co-working space, and TFC bills itself as a “co-cooking space”—one which hopes disrupt the speciality foods industry much as Airbnb has disrupted the hotel industry.

They’re now one step closer to their goal. Earlier this week, TFC closed their seed round and officially raised $555,000, all from within their home state of Colorado. Co-founder and CEO Ashley Colpaart told the Spoon that they will use their funds to add additional revenue generating features to TFC platform, grow the number of kitchens powered by their software over the next year, pay sales and marketing expenses, and hire key personnel.

Colpaart first got the idea for TFC when she was a PhD student at Colorado State University and got invited to Washington to a USDA event about food systems. After an onslaught of proposals which focused on infrastructure but didn’t come with a well-thought-out business plan, her frustration grew. “I got a little weary of allocating funds to something that didn’t seem like the right answer,” she said in an interview last year. While in an Uber (her first!) back to her Airbnb, she started thinking about ways to apply the sharing economy that’s so integral to vacation rentals and transportation to the food system.

“I was, like, ‘are we using the resources we have efficiently before we go build new ones?'” The answer was no—or really, not yet. Thus TFC, the online marketplace connecting shared-use kitchens with food entrepreneurs, was born.

In the past few years, the sharing economy has started to democratize food creation through shared kitchen spaces and food business incubators. TFC hopes to capitalize on this trend and facilitate its growth. “The goal is to create a resource that is an enduring contribution to the sustainability of shared kitchens,” said Colpaart.

TFC is hoping to become a key innovator in this emerging industry. They are planning a meetup later this year to bring together the leaders in the cottage foods disruption space. “I also think there is an opportunity to leverage the infrastructure of the kitchen to support more food entrepreneurs through technology,” said Colpaart. “For example, cloud kitchens or delivery only restaurants.” As long as it gets us more Sriracha popcorn faster, we’re in.

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The Spoon had a chance to ask Colpaart a few questions about the news and her plans for TFC. You can see our interview below.

Tell us a little about the Food Corridor?

Colpaart: The mission of TFC is to enable efficiency, growth, and innovation in local food… We provide a real solution to a real problem in the food system by using a proven, scalable concept applied to a new vertical.

We’ve seen a bunch of interest and growth in shared kitchen, kitchen incubators, in the last few years as the sharing economy has started to democratize food creation. How will TFC add to this conversation?

Colpaart: In addition to bringing the sharing economy to specialty foods, we are supporting local policy to increase shared use kitchens and grow the industry. We also facilitate the largest network of shared kitchens (900+) in the country, the Network for Incubator and Commissary Kitchens, which we are using to become the trusted thought leader in the space by providing content, industry reports, white papers, and a curated community to support the industry.

We are currently developing a Shared Kitchen Toolkit (SKT), as a collaboration between Purdue University, The Food Corridor, and Fruition Planning & Management, with funding from the USDA North Central SARE. The SKT is a web-based resource (both downloadable and dynamic) that will include guidance on feasibility and planning for new kitchen projects, as well as best practices for the day-to-day operations of shared-use kitchens. The goal is to create a resource that is an enduring contribution to the sustainability of shared kitchens.

How did food become such a focus for you?

Colpaart: My mom was a food entrepreneur (had a hot sauce company and catered out of our house). My dad was a hardware engineer (designed microprocessor chips) in Silicon Valley during the boom. I was raised on food tech.

What do you want Food Corridor to be in 5 years?

Colpaart: The mission of TFC is to be the world’s virtual food hub, enabling efficiency, growth, and innovation in local food systems across the globe. We want the platform to be a one-stop-shop for food entrepreneurs looking to start and scale food businesses by leveraging network assets and ecosystem services.

shared kitchens

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