Since its launch in 2016, fork food lab has facilitated the startup and scale-up of 120 enterprises, including food producers, caterers, food trucks, new product lines, and cooking classes and…

Fork Food Lab received a $1,054,073 Project Grant award from the United States Department of Agriculture Agricultural Marketing Service under the Farmers Market and Local Food Promotion Program to execute Fork Food Lab 2.0. This expansion project will scale up internal systems to support 75 commercial kitchen incubator members, create new value-added services including cooperative purchasing and centralized marketing, become USDA-certified for meat processing, develop a table-top manufacturing and packaging layout to position members for wholesale production, and provide new educational and culinary programming. The project aims to facilitate the development of $1M in value-added local food products from Maine and create 246 jobs and $17M in economic impact by 2025.

Since its launch in 2016, fork food lab has facilitated the startup and scale-up of 120 enterprises, including food producers, caterers, food trucks, new product lines, and cooking classes and competitions. As maine's only commercial kitchen incubator, fork has reached full capacity. Through a USDA implementation grant, we will execute fork food lab 2.0, an expansion that will help US 1) scale up our internal systems to support 75 members; 2) create new value-added services, including cooperative purchasing and centralized marketing; 3) become USDA-certified for meat processing; 4) create a table-top manufacturing and packaging layout that will position members for wholesale production; 5) develop hazard analysis critical control point, haacp plans that reflect best practices in food safety; and 6) provide new educational and culinary programming for fork members. By expanding the capacity of fork food lab, this USDA implementation grant will facilitate the development of value-added products from $1 million in maine fish, meat, dairy, eggs, grains, and produce, resulting in the creation of 246 jobs and $17 million in economic impact by 2025.