Ali Montagnon was looking for black sesame seeds when I walked into Hope & Main, a food business incubator in Warren, on Tuesday. One of the incubator’s members needed the sesame seeds, she explained.
Montagnon gave me a tour of the building, which was once a school. The building still has classroom-like rooms for events, but its top floor now has two commercial kitchens for Hope & Main’s members. And there's one more in the basement.
Montagnon is Hope & Main’s director of events and market manager, although she and her colleagues wear many hats for the nonprofit organization, including providing incubator members with the resources and tools they need to lift their products or companies off the ground. She’s also an adept tour guide. A colleague told Montagnon midway through my tour that the black sesame seed crisis had been averted. Phew.
Three years into its life, Hope & Main has helped about 150 food entrepreneurs, personal chefs and artisanal bakers bring products to market. The organization aims to provide resources, community and guidance to food entrepreneurs.
“We found it’s really lonely to be an entrepreneur, especially in the food sector,” Montagnon says.
Hope & Main has also plugged into the Rhode Island food community, partnering with local organizations and inviting the public in for events, including cooking classes and farmer’s markets. Hope & Main has an organic vegetable garden in the back of the building, which they use for educational purposes in the summer.
“We want to be a hub for Rhode Island food,” Montagnon says.
Lisa Raiola opened Hope & Main in 2014 to support makers by offering resources including branding, retail, packaging and marketing expertise, as well as access to commercial kitchens and equipment. Raiola now serves on the incubator’s board of advisers and works full time at Roger Williams University. Hope & Main has four people on staff today and about 60 current active members.
Members pay to use the kitchen space and the money is invested back into the organization, Montagnon says. Another revenue stream for Hope & Main is when companies or chefs pay the organization to produce products on their behalf, in one of the nonprofit's three commercial kitchens.
Current Hope & Main members are making products including macarons, granola, pickles, condiments, rugelach and kimchi. Tracy Woodard, for example, is a therapist in her day job and makes macarons at Hope & Main in her free time. The entrepreneur started selling macarons this summer and now does pop-up shops, farmers markets and specialty orders, Montagnon says.
“It’s her therapy,” Montagnon says.
Montagnon says Hope & Main has become a lifestyle. The events manager has changed her diet since joining the incubator in 2014 and asks more questions about where her food is really from. She’s says that’s part of Hope & Main’s mission, too — educating the local community about where their food is coming from and what is really in the food they are eating. Hope & Main also happens to be located in a food desert, Montagnon says, making that aspect of the mission all the more important.
Over time, Montagnon says Hope & Main wants to deepen its programming offerings to include more options for companies that aren’t brand new startups, but aren’t yet ready to stand on their own. Montagnon says the organization also wants to partner with more local organizations to offer new programs.
“That keeps us relevant in the industry,” Montagnon says.
