WIREDGOV

Following an award of £71,000 from the Big Lottery Fund, Kitchenette, the UKs first kitchen incubator scheme is set to run a pilot project helping London’s most promising and original low income food entrepreneurs to get started. 

Kitchenette aims to help talented, naturally entrepreneurial cooks to start viable, ethical food businesses. Now they are starting a programme for low-income food entrepreneurs, to help them lift themselves out of poverty and create economic regeneration opportunities in their local economy.

The project is based on successful culinary incubators in the US, such as La Cocina in San Francisco, and will seek to develop this concept in London. It will specifically focus on working with potential entrepreneurs from BAME groups, low-income backgrounds and women.

The funding from the Big Lottery Fund will help test and develop the model for the Kitchenette programme for low-income entrepreneurs, with a thorough evaluation of the results of the pilot.

As part of the pilot, Kitchenette will work with 12 candidates offering them access to kitchen preparation spaces; mentoring and workshop sessions on sourcing, sustainability and economics of a food business; real life training, including working in successful kitchens and access to trading opportunities at London street markets.

Cynthia Shanmugalingam, Chief Executive and founder of Kitchenette said: “This funding will enable us to focus on supporting low-income entrepreneurs into the food industry, giving them mentoring as well as access to great markets that make food so remarkably open to an incredibly diverse range of people.

“A revolution in the economics of food entrepreneurship is happening. There are new cheap ways to start; street food and supper clubs; crowdfunding instead of traditional investment; social media instead of traditional critics and marketing channels, all changing the landscape and opening up access to a new generation. We'll work with people across London, particularly women, to help them get started, so they can serve up delicious food and become their own boss."

Dharmendra Kanani, Big Lottery Fund England Director added: “This project fuses the passion of food with enterprise and speaks to an emerging market witnessed by us in a fast changing street food landscape. Community life is often built around food and thriving street markets support thriving communities around them. Food can also be one of the most open routes for disadvantaged people into entrepreneurship. However, since food businesses have quite high failure rates, obtaining backing for someone without previous experience in food start ups can be tricky.

“The type of support that Kitchenette is planning to offer is invaluable in not only encouraging those who might not necessarily have the confidence to strike out on their own but also in helping them to obtain skills that would make their projects a success.”

Kitchenette was launched by the founder of top London restaurants the Cinnamon Club and Roast (Iqbal Wahhab, Chair); top tech start-up Songkick (Pete Smith, Advisor); and the former head of social ventures at the Young Foundation (Cynthia Shanmugalingam, CEO).

The organisation assembled an impressive network of mentors and advisors who comprise some of the best food industry experts in London including Sinclair Beecham (a founder of Prêt a Manger); Vivek Singh (head chef at the Cinnamon Club and founder of Cinnamon Kitchen) and Shamil Thakrar (founder of Dishoom Restaurants).

The project has secured free or very cheap under-utilised equipment and market access opportunities, from organisations including Real Food Market, Feast London (dub be done of the UK’s top food markets) and KERB. It has also developed a curriculum for the incubator in partnership with the leading US kitchen incubator, La Cocina; and have received backing from several leading organisations including NESTA, the Sustainable Restaurants Association, Bethnal Green Ventures and The Shoreditch Trust.

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Notes to editors    

• The Big Lottery Fund is responsible for giving out 40% of the money raised for good causes by the National Lottery.
• The Fund is committed to bringing real improvements to communities and the lives of people most in need and has been rolling out grants to health, education, environment and charitable causes across the UK. Since its inception in 2004 BIG has awarded close to £6bn.
• The Fund was formally established by Parliament on 1 December 2006.
• In the year ending 31 March 2013, 28% of total National Lottery revenue was returned to the Good Causes.
• Since the National Lottery began in 1994, £31 billion has been raised and more than 400,000 grants awarded across arts, sport, heritage, charities, health, education and the environment.