Blue Oven Kitchens Inc. is a not-for-profit kitchen incubator serving North Central Florida.  Its mission is to foster a whole-system approach to the sustainable growth of the North Central Florida food system.  We provide and promote foodways, foodshed, food economics, and food safety research and education; and we incubate low-income and disadvantaged food entrepreneurs. 

Its goals:

• To support through business support services and kitchen facility rental the low-income and disadvantaged food entrepreneurs of North Central Florida during their most vulnerable periods:  start-up and expansion.
• To research and address processing bottlenecks in the local food system.
• To foster connections between farmers, the foodservice industry, and consumers.
• To educate the North Central Florida community about its food system and economy.
• To explore new avenues of sustainability in food economics, including alternative processing facilities; regulatory innovation; energy efficiency programs; renewable energy projects; and food-waste, packaging, and greenhouse gas mitigation strategies.

A kitchen incubator provides access to inspected, commercial kitchen space while also providing business support services.  We are currently fundraising to build a facility that will host our activities and be open for rental.  It will host cooking and preserving classes, community canning days, and other activities designed to teach our community about local and healthy eating.  This facility will be fit for caterers, bakers, most specialty product entrepreneurs and others to rent.

If you require an inspected kitchen now, we have developed the Referral Service Program by which we match existing inspected kitchens with appropriate renters (please see Facilities & Referral for more information).