A food-focused local nonprofit group has relaunched its popular grant program backed by the nation’s largest grocery store operator, and the funds will be used to help support more than a half dozen entrepreneurs looking to launch and grow businesses in the region.
Newport’s Incubator Kitchen Collective, for the third year, is partnering with downtown-based Kroger Co. (NYSE: KR) to provide funds for budding food and beverage entrepreneurs. A $38,700 grant will cover the cost for seven companies — up from five companies awarded in 2021 — to work in the Incubator Kitchen rent-free for a year starting in February 2023.
Rachel DesRochers, founder of the Incubator Kitchen Collective, said past recipients have used the funds to invest in and develop their businesses.
Applications are available for both newly launched businesses, those in the initial 0-6-month startup phase, and more established ones, those with a year or two under their belts. The grant covers a membership at the Incubator Kitchen Collective.
The funds will be dispersed slightly different than in past years. Grant tiers now include “egg level,” which will include three companies at $2,700 per company; “chick level,” or two companies at $5,040 per company; and “hen level,” or two companies at $8,160 per company.
“For the last two years, we’ve given grants out at our highest membership level, and that’s almost too much for some of the companies we've awarded. We decided if we reworked it a little, we could help more people,” DesRochers told me. “We want to meet these makers where they are.”
Grant applications open today. Submissions will be accepted until Oct. 13. Those interested can apply online here.
Recipients will be announced during the Incubator Kitchen Collective’s second annual fundraiser, “A Taste of Gratitude,” scheduled for 5-7 p.m. Nov. 6 at Rhinegeist Brewery in Over-the-Rhine. The dinner-by-the-bite event will feature more than local 20 food vendors/members of the Incubator Kitchen.
The grant program initially got off the ground after DesRochers took Kroger’s former corporate affairs manager for Cincinnati/Dayton, Erin Rolfes, on a tour of the Incubator Kitchen in 2019. Five companies, including Derrick Braziel’s Pata Roja Taqueria and F & Goode Desserts, which offers baked goods and catering, received the initial grants.
Kroger said its continued partnership with the Incubator Kitchen Collaborative will help strengthen the overall ecosystem.
“The Incubator Kitchen Collaborative’s model is the perfect mix of ingredients from networking and educational classes to production space to help small businesses grow,” Kroger spokeswoman Jenifer Moore said in an emailed statement. "Kroger’s continued investment will encourage innovation, diversity and uplift the next generation of food producers.”
Since its founding in 2013, the Incubator Kitchen Collective has played host to more than 170 startups. The Collective provides all of the professional-grade equipment food businesses need along with storage space. It also offers mentorship, marketing, networking, business coaching and more.
Currently, 45 food-related companies work out of its facilities every month. Members, past and present, include Grateful Grahams — a handmade vegan graham cracker company DesRochers founded in 2010 — Dinner to Doorbells, CinSoy Foods, Pata Roja, Oakley Urban Farm, Sweet Ace Cakes and more.
“Healthy people build healthy businesses,” DesRochers said. “If we can give them the tools they need to succeed, their businesses last longer. Having rent covered for one year thanks to Kroger takes some of the burden off. Ninety-five percent of businesses close within the first year. We are flipping that number on its head. Ninety-five percent of our businesses are still operating after their first year. Our goal is to be their champion.”
