The term Commercial Kitchen can have many variations, yet at its most basic its meaning is a room or building, or any part thereof, used for food preparation that meets all the requirements of local building code and is not a residential kitchen. As commercial kitchens proliferate with the development of food system infrastructure across […]
New Venture Advisors is seeing a growing number of Community Food Center and innovative food facility projects develop across the United States. We are constantly talking with teams and individuals who have big dreams and come to us for help or are looking for grants to fund their vision. While it is exciting to see […]
Sometimes the perfect storm for innovation is a crisis (or global pandemic) that pushes organizations further into their mission. Or it creates an opportunity to try something that under normal conditions would seem outrageous, but suddenly seems like the only option to meet the real-time needs of the community. We have been catching up with […]
Late last summer we were contacted by Open Door Advisors with a remarkable question: “Would you be interested in writing a starter guide to help houses of worship use their facilities as community kitchens?” YES! I could not believe that the idea hadn’t already occurred to us. Houses of worship — churches, synagogues, temples, mosques […]
Community Food Centers are an exciting development in food system infrastructure and make up an increasing share of our work at New Venture Advisors. In this screencast I’ll share some of the elements we’re seeing come together in Community Food Centers across the nation. This screencast is the companion video to our Good Food Glossary […]
We are excited to spotlight CommonWealth Kitchen in our Forces for Good Food series. CommonWealth Kitchen is Greater Boston’s only food business incubator / accelerator and integrated “small batch” food manufacturer, providing shared-use kitchens, wrap-around technical support, coordinated access to markets, and outsourced manufacturing to over 55 food companies. They are focused on creating an […]
As many of you know, we publish a monthly Good Food Brief with the big and small stories that chronicle trends in the food industry. Sometimes we come across programs that we wish had news coverage so that we could share them with you. Programs that serve often excluded communities, that deploy capital to build […]
The growth cycle of most small businesses that make their start in a shared kitchen or kitchen incubator is different from a business operating within its own space. Both face the normal challenges of scaling and the capital needed to support their growth, but businesses operating from a shared or incubator kitchen face the question […]
A simple definition of ghost kitchen is “commercial cooking space with no dine-in option” (QSR Magazine). The concept derived from restaurants that wanted to increase their meal delivery capacity to meet demand without having to increase the size of their storefronts. According to the National Restaurant Association, 60% of restaurant meals are consumed off-premise due […]
New Venture Advisors is privileged to work alongside powerful forces driving progress toward building food systems we can all be proud of. These forces—our collaborators, partners, clients, visionaries—are leaders in changing how we think about food. As a returning feature of our blog, we voice our gratitude and place the spotlight on the people and […]
The Whatcom County Food System Committee recently conducted a community food assessment that pointed to key opportunities to build a more robust and resilient regional food system. New Venture Advisors will partner with Whatcom County staff and the Food System Committee to draft a Whatcom County Food System Plan that builds upon these findings. This Plan will focus on six sectors of the food system including fishing, farming, labor, food access, environment, and waste, and will be informed by an inclusive and equitable community engagement process. The Food System Plan will provide the county with a policy roadmap that will strengthen the local food system for years to come. (2022)
The Whatcom Community Foundation invests in activities and organizations that improve the ability of people to help themselves, increase connections among people, and take cooperative approaches to community issues. WCF is exploring the development of a local food campus on a waterfront property that would become a multi-tenant site, anchored by a school district commissary. The goal is to strengthen Whatcom County’s local food system by promoting health equity, forging tangible strategic connections between food production organizations, and helping farmers connect with institutional markets. NVA developed the business case for this ambitious project and continues to support its development. (2022)