Several months after the launch of WeWork Food Labs in NYC, WeWork is launching a second location of its food tech facility and accelerator program, The Spoon has confirmed via an industry source.
While WeWork hasn’t gone on record with information about this forthcoming San Francisco location, the company did leave a job posting on LinkedIn recently for a Food Labs Manager in San Francisco, CA whose role will be to help launch and manage the community of startups taking part of WeWork Food Labs.
WeWork, who officially rebranded as The We Company earlier this year, announced its Food Labs program in March of this year in NYC as an innovation hub for startups working across many areas of food tech, including alt-protein, robotics, supply chain management, new ingredients (e.g., CBD), and kitchen appliances. The Labs offers two different programs to which companies can apply: continuous programming, where chosen companies get access to the WeWork Food Labs space and a more traditional accelerator program that runs for five months per cohort.
The NYC program launched in a temporary space in May of 2019 in an existing WeWork location. It is slated to move to its permanent flagship space in Chelsea in October that includes an R&D kitchen for participating companies to use as well as a photo studio, a mock merchandising area, and a tasting table.
According to The Spoon’s source, the San Francisco Food Labs will follow a similar path, starting first in an existing WeWork location before moving to a permanent residence that includes the R&D kitchen and other features listed above.
In materials sent to The Spoon earlier this year, WeWork noted that future expansions of Food Labs will also focus on areas where the food gap is urgent, and could include areas such as Mumbai, Bangkok, and Barranquilla, in addition to more U.S. locations such as Denver and Seattle.
WeWork officially released its IPO prospectus on Wednesday. The company could go public as early as next month.
Disclosure: The Spoon is a launch partner with WeWork Food Labs. Read Mike’s Publisher’s Note to learn more about why we’ve teamed up with WeWork and the editorial standards we’ve put in place for coverage of WeWork Labs companies moving forward.
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