HomeGrown Directory

Contact Carol Coulter or Rhonda Church

336-982-5127
The Creative food Ventures shared use kitchen will provide a 2500 square foot commercial production kitchen to serve the High Country region. There will be a variety of products produced in the kitchen by both new entrepreneurs and existing food based businesses. The kitchen will have the equipment to support the following category of products.

• Caterer/ Personal Chef
• Baked goods (breads, cakes, pies, etc...)
• Farmer adding value to produce (bagged vegetables, apples, slices, etc..)
• Specialty food producer: frozen products
• Specialty food producer: canned/jarred products (salsas, sauces, dressings,
• pickles, etc...)
• Specialty food products: refrigerated product (fresh salsa, dips, etc...)
• Herbal products for human consumption (teas, spice mixtures, etc...)
• Herbal products for topical use (salves, creams, sprays, etc.)
• Dried products (tomatoes, mushrooms, apples, soups, etc...)

In addition to the production side of the kitchen there will be walk in cooler and freezer storage space and dried goods storage space. The kitchen staff are working closely with the Small Business Center at Wilkes Community College to offer seminars on food based business start-up and with Appalachian Regional Development Institute 's Entrepreneurial Development Courses.

The long term plans for the kitchen are to create new jobs through contract work with producers, for example the apple growers want someone to make apple pies, apple butter and dehydrated apples from the cull apples. We may make some of our own Creative Food Ventures products as well as work with new food based business.

We are working on our webpage and hope to develop e-commerce. We have been talking with shop owners along the Blue Ridge Parkway about shelf space and most shop owners have been very positive. Each item produced at the Creative Food Ventures kitchen should have the web address on their label so that people can reorder items when they run out. We also hope to do gift baskets that feature locally produced foods.

We are planning to open the kitchen January 22, 2007 with limited equipment. We will host open house and tours of the kitchen to encourage folks in the region to make use of the kitchen. The staff will be on hand to answer questions and work with folks to develop business plans and look at the feasibility of starting a food based business.

The current fee schedule is available guide you in your business planning.