SitemapIt’s the middle of the afternoon and the
Common Wealth Kitchen Incubator is a hive of activity: Chefs dice produce, cooks
prepare barbecue and bakers set bread and pastries out ready for that day’s
farmers market.
The scene was the same early in the day just as it will be
repeated that evening. “We’re busier than we’ve ever been,” says Tom Phibbs,
manager and business coach of the incubator. “It’s exciting to watch the
project go from, when I started, maybe a handful of users, to yesterday being
at capacity. We would have had to turn folks away. It’s been beautiful to see
it unfold.” In 2014, Phibbs and his wife, Katie, moved their business, The
Lettuce People, into the kitchen incubator as one of its first clients. Since
then, they’ve become tenants with him operating the incubator as she runs The
Lettuce People from the basement below the kitchen. A year ago, Common Wealth
Inc. – parent of the incubator – and the Youngstown Neighborhood Development
Corp. were awarded a $250,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Health and
Human Services to buy and install a canning line. Another recent addition is
the blast freezer funded by a $60,000 grant. “That will help us launch new
frozen-food businesses out of here, as well as help large businesses that are
looking to ship across the United States,” Phibbs says. To read the full story from the Business Journal, click here.