- April 24, 2024
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The concept could help home-based businesses become storefront businesses.
While city officials continue to ponder legalizing home-based cottage food businesses, one Palm Coast resident has an idea.
“I think that home-based bakeries are a good starting point for some people to get off the ground,” said Sara Puterbaugh, of Palm Coast. “But I would rather see a culinary incubator.”
She said a kitchen incubator would be a centralized facility that is inspected and licensed by the state. She said such a plan would alleviate a lot of the City Council’s objections, which were stated at a Feb. 14 workshop.
“It gives those who don’t have the kind of money for a storefront the stepping stone, a leg up, to get to the storefront,” Puterbaugh said.
Joe Roy, area manager for the Palm Coast Business Assistance Center, said Wednesday that he had scheduled a meeting to explore the posssibility of a “commissary.”
“That’s what they call it in the state,” Roy said. “It’s an approved food facility ... that meets all the state requirements.”
Roy said several businesses have expressed interest in a kitchen incubator.
“I want to determine the need and then figure out how we might be able to do something for a regular food service commissary,” Roy said.
For Puterbaugh, having a kitchen incubator could provide the tools to evolve her home-based cooking abilities into a career. She believes she has the skills to make a profit and career out of baking.
“Any serious entrepreneur wants to work their way to a storefront,” she said. “We just don’t have the financial backing to do it. But that’s what the incubator will do.”
Ideally, the facility would be owned by the city, Puterbaugh says, adding that the city would simply need to break even.
City Manager Jim Landon said the ideal situation would be if the private sector operated the facility.
Puterbaugh, who lived in the Virgin Islands for most of her adult life, said she could fill a niche in Palm Coast if she could eventually open a business. Though she didn’t go to culinary school, she has learned most of her baking and cooking skills from her grandmother and mother.
Puterbaugh said she met with Roy earlier in the week; Roy said he will continue to research the concept.
“I know there’s a lot of talent here in Palm Coast,” Puterbaugh said. “We just need to get it properly channeled.”
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