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RENTAL KITCHEN HUGE PIECE OF PUZZLE FOR ASPIRING AGRIBUSINESSES
It takes more than a great family recipe to become a successful agribusiness – it also takes a substantial investment of time, effort and money. But for would-be gourmet food producers in Huntington and surrounding areas, the price of market entry just took a nosedive thanks to the opening of Mountain Bounty Kitchen in Huntington.
Considered an incubator facility, Mountain Bounty rents state-of-the-art kitchen space to business owners going into commercial production for the first time and to small producers who may have an established reputation but whose production levels don’t warrant the investment in a commercial kitchen of their own.
“This facility has absolutely everything that a start-up company could want in a kitchen facility. Everything in there is commercial-grade and meets or exceeds all health and sanitation standards,” said Commissioner of Agriculture Gus R. Douglass. “And it can all be rented on an hourly basis at a very reasonable rate.”
Specialty kitchen equipment can be enormously expensive, especially for home-based producers who are uncertain if their products will sell or not. For example, the automated fill line in one of Mountain Bounty’s three kitchens costs approximately $350,000 by itself.
Mountain Bounty Executive Director Lawrence Perry has worked with food producers in the past, but mainly as a business consultant through Unlimited Future, the parent organization of Mountain Bounty Kitchen.
“Several years ago, we found a lot of food entrepreneurs that didn’t fall into the traditional mold of needing an office to come to – they needed a kitchen,” said Perry. “The Department of Agriculture has a network of specialty food folks across the state and we asked them what they needed in terms of equipment.”
The upshot is a 14,000-square-foot, $2.8 million facility that has been carefully designed to meet the needs of local producers. However, business development is still a large part of the equation. Besides production kitchens, the building also includes conference rooms for tenants to meet with potential customers and Perry still advises business owners on production and marketing matters. The building also contains such amenities as showers and lockers for workers, and in the near future will feature key cards so that tenants can have access to the building when needed.
Perry thanked the local Economic Development Authority, Appalachian Regional Commission, Huntington/Ironton Empowerment Zone, State of West Virginia, City of Huntington, Benedum Foundation and Foundation for the Tri-State Community for the dollars needed to get the incubator off the ground.
At the grand opening October 11, current tenants sang the praises of the facility. For some it provided the opportunity to achieve a lifelong dream of going into business for themselves. For others, it represented an efficient and realistic means of expanding their businesses.
“It’s more than the equipment that’s here; it’s the people behind the scenes who have the expertise and know which way to go to help your dream become a reality – to have your product end up on a grocery shelf and to help you end up being a viable company,” said Darrell Vowell, owner of Cowboy Cookin’ Company. Vowell came to West Virginia from Arkansas in 1992 and has been encouraged by friends and acquaintances for years to bottle his homemade barbecue sauce. Although he was already considering it, winning the “Recipe Challenge” contest at this year’s State Fair sealed the deal, as kitchen time at Mountain Bounty was a part of his prize package.
John Pannell has been selling his “Johnny Dogs” from a mobile cart and at the Chevron station on Tenth Avenue in Huntington for some time. Mountain Bounty, he said, has allowed him to make a quantum leap in the amount of hotdog sauce he can produce at one time. “I’ve gone from five pounds of production to 40 pounds at a time,” he said. “I’ve found this place to be very helpful. I hope to get my sauce in jars and get it out in the stores.”
For more information on Mountain Bounty Kitchen, phone 304-697-3007, or visit www.mountainbountykitchen.com.
For more information on agribusiness development in West Virginia, contact the West Virginia Department of Agriculture at 304-558-2210, or visit www.wvagriculture.org.
The West Virginia Department of Agriculture protects plant, animal and human health through a variety of scientific, regulatory and consumer protection programs, as mandated by state law. The Commissioner of Agriculture is one of six statewide elected officials in West Virginia. Currently, Commissioner Gus R. Douglass is the longest-serving agriculture commissioner in the nation. For more information, visit www.wvagriculture.org.
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