#CULINARY INCUBATOR KITCHEN BROOKLYN PROFESSIONAL#

Consequently the more successful businesses tend to pay higher membership fees. “We want to address low income being a barrier to starting a food business,” says Kobla, “and some of our most scrappy and clever entrepreneurs come out of that demographic.” In addition to a flat fee, members pay hourly rental rates for kitchen space and for the use of storage and cooler space. These are assessed on a sliding scale and forty percent of businesses receive a subsidy. Philanthropy enables the organization to subsidize incubator membership fees in cases of need. In total across the organization, 60 percent of the operating budget comes from bread sales and kitchen rentals the remaining funds come from philanthropic partners. “She will likely be outsourcing production to a co-packer and can then concentrate on the marketing and the administrative aspects of running her business.” “At some point it won’t be cost efficient for Ulrika to be making these cookies in our incubator,” he notes. She is expected to graduate out of the incubator soon, Kobla Asamoah, Hot Bread Kitchen’s program director reports. Ulrika Pettersson of Unna Bakery bakes small-batch artisanal Swedish cookies from family recipes, inspired by her grandmother. Hot Bread Kitchen Incubates has supported the growth of 172 food businesses and graduated 34 businesses. Those lucky enough to be selected for membership in HBK Incubates enjoy twenty-four hour access, seven days a week, to a fully equipped 3,000-square-foot kitchen with ten production stations, as well as a receiving bay and delivery area staffed by an onsite porter. HBK Incubates does everything it can to support its entrepreneurs’ success, to mitigate startup risks, and prepare the business for life outside the incubator. We are in a position to provide that kind of training.” “But we also hear that they need someone who shows up on time, who has a positive attitude, and knows basic rules of being in the kitchen. “We hear from employees that, yes, it is great to get a fully Hot Bread trained worker,” Karen elaborates.

#CULINARY INCUBATOR KITCHEN BROOKLYN PROFESSIONAL#

“Meanwhile there is a shortage of bakers and cooks all across the food industry.” To address that demand- supply gap, and recognizing that giving trainees the soft skills they need to transition to professional kitchens may be as important as their baking credentials, Hot Bread plans to condense the training period to four months with an upfront emphasis on the softer skills. “We had 600 applications last year and we were only able to take on 60 women into training,” Karen reports. To give more women the opportunity to be trained and anticipating the rise in New York City’s minimum hourly wage from $11 to $15 in 2019, the Bakers in Training program is being tweaked. “We place our trainees with companies like Whole Foods, Eataly, Amy’s Bread, Google, Fresh Direct and others.” Hot Bread Kitchen has worked with more than twenty hiring partners and is continually building relationships with prospective employers.

“We are looking for companies that can offer a better than average hourly wage, benefits, and growth within the organization.” Karen notes. They may have been doing house cleaning or childcare or home health care and there is a lot to learn about being at work in a more structured work environment.” As Bakers in Training they also learn to manage their child-care responsibilities and other daily life challenges.Īll trainees are paid New York City’s minimum wage and when they complete the program, Hot Bread Kitchen secures full-time work in bakeries and restaurants across the city for one hundred percent of its graduates.

“For many of the women in our program regardless of their place of birth,” notes Karen Bornath, Program Director of Bakers in Training, “this is their first experience in the formal work sector. In addition to time in the kitchen-typically 3 or 4, 8-hour shifts a week-trainees spend an hour and a half a week in a classroom setting where a certified on-staff ESL instructor, Nassem Kapdi, also a trained baker, teaches the math and science of baking, as well as critical soft skills. In a virtuous circle, Hot Bread Kitchen’s profits are plowed back into the training program and the Hot Bread Kitchen incubator.

Major accounts include retailers like Whole Foods Market, Park Slope Food Co-op, and Dean & Daluca, along with restaurants like Untitled at the Whitney, Gramercy Tavern, and Fuku. Trainees spend about 6 months of paid training time in the bakery, in a live, “on the job” working environment, baking the bread that goes out the door under the Hot Bread Kitchen brand.

Culinary incubator kitchen brooklyn