I’ve been hearing buzz about the Farmer’s Market having a community kitchen for many months now as folks have wondered and talked about it. I can tell you now that it’s real. I sat down in the actual kitchen a week ago to get the scoop directly from Food Hub Kitchen Manager Melinda Hambrick.
To start at the beginning, in 2021 Prescott Farmer’s Market Executive Director Kathleen Yetman applied for and won a three-year grant of about $345,000 from the USDA Local Food Promotion Program to build a food hub, commissary kitchen, and incubator-training site.
Then Melinda was hired and went to work on locating, rebuilding, renovating, outfitting, permitting and licensing, and waiting to get the word out. These processes are slow. The NoCo kitchen (named after its location at 216 North Cortez Street) is now finally open and available!
A food hub is defined by the USDA as “a centrally located facility with a business-management structure facilitating the aggregation, storage, processing, distribution, and/or marketing of locally/regionally produced food products.” It will bring together small farmers and producers to satisfy a large buyer like a grocery store, restaurant, college or school, for large buyers to access locally grown and produced foods. This is called aggregation.
Food-hub services also include distribution (pickup and delivery) and marketing (getting the word out). Essentially, food hubs support small farms and producers by connecting the dots between producers and consumers in local and regional food systems. This idea is exploding across the country, with hundreds of food hubs already in place.
A commissary kitchen is a shared, licensed commercial kitchen. Small food businesses and producers (like food trucks, caterers, and jam, pickle or pie makers) need a health-department approved kitchen to make and sell food for public consumption. Kitchens like this are few and far between in Prescott and Yavapai County.
“The incubator program is the ‘community’ part of the kitchen,” explains Melinda. It offers food-business training for necessary skills like accounting, taxes, costing, purchasing and marketing. It develops networking and mentoring help. To begin the incubator program brings together classes of twelve or less, meeting online in four weekly classes, followed with a mentorship program. The goal is to end up with a business plan — a detailed document that explains the what, why, and wherefore of the business, a road map to success. The goal is to build community around others with the same challenges.
The NoCo kitchen is brightly painted in aqua, yellow and orange, with gleaming equipment in pristine condition. It has taken a ton of work and time to create. Formerly this space was home to the bar of a fraternal organization, and was beat up, stained, ragged and soured by 45 years of heavy use. Melinda described it as “terrifying,” but her experience as an owner of a small family bakery made her particularly well suited to the job. She supervised the renovations, overcame the challenges, and is now in place to coach and train applicants and oversee kitchen operations.
The NoCo kitchen will help small food producers realize their dreams. If you have a dream of getting into a food business, especially if you are using local ingredients, the NoCo kitchen can be a guide and support.
Melinda says, “the thing that has blown me away the most is how many businesses have been scrambling to make their dreams come true. My intention is that this place becomes home to those who are chasing those dreams, who need the support, and in doing so maintains the strength of local, small-scale food production. It takes community. We need each other — the farmers growing your food, the entrepreneurs next door, the fellow working beside you.” Melinda’s advice for food service dreamers is, “Don’t be afraid. Go for it. We’re here to help.”
For more information about general requirements, terms of use, rates, availability and scheduling, or to apply, visit prescottfarmersmarket.org/noco-community-kitchen, or contact Melinda at 928-458-4163 or melinda@prescottfarmersmarket.org.
Chef Molly Beverly is Prescott's leading creative food activist and teacher. Photos by Gary Beverly.
