Hot Kitchen Collective
Centre for Social Innovation Food Constellation, Toronto.
There is a dire need for commercial kitchen space in the city. Many small food entrepreneurs are emerging with stunning food products but in order to comply with Toronto public health regulations, they need, among other things, to prepare their food in a commercially inspected kitchen. Trouble is that there are few such kitchens available and those that do exist are often over-booked and rather expensive for the small scale producer. The Hot Kitchen Collective is an idea whose time has come. Instead of building new commercial kitchens, the Hot Kitchen Collective program seeks to make use of under-used industrially outfitted kitchens. Where are they? In our local churches, synagogues, mosques, temples and community centres. By offering a booking platform, the Hot Kitchen Collective program can make these kitchens available for bookings to food entrepreneurs and others working in the Good Food Sector. Places in the city with kitchen facilities to rent would pay a registration fee that would cover the costs of posting their space on the website, contracts that they could enter into with clients interested in using their space, and any consulting necessary to get their kitchens up to code to comply with municipal regulations. Clients booking the kitchen would pay by credit card on the site only when they rent a kitchen (no joining fee), and a small booking fee would be collected for each booking and that revenue would help defray the costs of running the website and program.
The project reduces energy use in the form of petrol for transportation of industrial food products by supplanting these products and their huge carbon footprints with locally produced often artisanal products produced in the city's existing kitchens, thereby making them more affordable and accessible. It also reduces waste by reducing the unnecessary heating and cooling of empty kitchens. These kitchens will no longer be underused. And the project also shifts demand from unaffordable commercial kitchen construction to affordable hot kitchen rentals by recognizing existing capacity and harnessing it for social and environmental good. It is well documented that much of the traffic on our roads is due to the transport of food, especially in the industrial food sector. Often the foods we purchase in the supermarket are long distance travelers with huge carbon footprints. We buy plenty of foreignly produced products: salamis and cheeses, pickles and jams, but even in the Canadian made foods, ingredients have often criss-crossed the country before arriving in our kitchens. It doesn't have to be that way.
The team includes the leads Aruna Handa and Mike Paduada. We are consulting with members of the CSI Food Constellation, many of whom are anxious to see this project come online so that they can solve the barriers to their success in the lack of affordable commercial kitchen space. We are consulting with people like Alvin Rebick who runs a hot kitchen at FoodShare (where Aruna is a board member) and with others in the province who are also keen to resolve this issue. We are in contact with Toronto Public Health about the regulations and are considering partnering with various organizations keen to see this project come alive.
The project will be self-sustaining by skimming a booking fee off each kitchen booking. The project has the potential to become a template for similar initiatives in other cities and the website has the potential to become a booking platform to connect spaces for rent with people seeking spaces for various purposes. In addition, while no fee to join will be charged to the clients looking to book space, a fee will be levied to those seeking to post their spaces on the site to cover the expense of inspecting their premises, categorizing it for the website's purposes, providing contracts and handling the administration of the rental fees paid. This fee is also a source of revenue to keep the venture financially self-sufficient.
We anticipate running the project in a pilot mode in the first stage, and then once the wrinkles have been ironed out, scaling up perhaps in stages until we are city-wide. And then we'd investigate the possibilities of broadening our scope to include other cities and possibly other countries.
Comments
smart cookies
I love this idea for its simplicity. I think it could substantially lower food-entrepreneurs start up costs. I also bet many of them have not thought about this and if you brought your service to the right target market you could see a lot of activity relatively quickly.
I think you should re-look at your business model. I would guess that community kitchens do not have a load of cash. Whereas aspiring chefs would be raising start-up cash and would be willing to spend it on the pre-inspected facilities. So your entrepreneurs might be your more willing source of cash.
I think your target market, after you find all your willing and ready kitchens, would be chef schools. You might also find a way of posting on restaurant start-up or even franchise trade magazines/websites, because even if food entrepreneurs are starting small, they are probably educating themselves about going big.
I helped start a 'community kitchen' at the YMCA in Toronto. It quickly turned into the sort of under-used kitchen you are talking about, where all it is is a prep area for child care snacks. So this idea speaks to my personal experience.
Huge Potential
This could be a killer idea if envisioned as an peer to peer online platform, a la www.airbnb.com for kitchen space.
Clarity around how technology factors in, and what the market size is. Also, Matt Wood makes a good point about clarifying who the payer is.
Neat idea
Interesting -- I know a lot of churches are struggling with declining membership and still need to maintain their buildings. This has a win-win (and maybe another win) feel to it.
mmm...
mmm. food. toronto's becoming a bigger global food hub and a more collaborative city - i think you're catching the trends at the right time.
This is a great concept! I love to cook :D
I think this is a great way for restaurant entrepenuers have the access to the resouces that they so badly need. There is a lot of overhead and risk in this industry and this could give passionate chefs and foodies the oppotunity to explore their talents!
some clarification
Mike Paduada here, one of the two team members on this project. I just wanted to add a few notes to clarify some ideas/details in this entry.
1. While our initial scope is to deploy the system in Toronto, the plan is to eventually scale it to other cities, eventually reaching to multiple countries (North America, and possibly beyond).
2. Assaf Weisz's observation that it's similar to Air BnB is correct. It's a similar type of booking system that also generates revenue through booking fees.
3. As well, we would generate listing fees (like premium craigslist accounts) and provide premium service options to large-scale clients (like LinkedIn Premium).
The ClimateSpark Social Venture Challenge is a project of:
Our sponsors:
What type of management
What type of management/support system will be put in place to manage rentals, collect fees, schedule bookings, etc. Would this be on the individual kitchens to manage or would it be done centrally?