This article is one of a series of stories about Michigan's agricultural economy. It is made possible with funding from the Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development.
Starlett Simmons loved baking since childhood and was known for baking cakes and pastries from scratch for family, friends, and coworkers.
The owner of Roseville-based
Five Star Cake Co. Dessert Boutique & Bakery initially turned her passion into a money-making venture by baking cakes at home under Michigan's Cottage Food Law. The law allows small businesses to make non-potentially hazardous foods for direct sale to customers without licensing and inspection, an exemption that allows them to get started in the food business without costly overhead. Simmons was ready to expand beyond her home kitchen, but not ready for her own facility.
Food startups like Simmons' can run into a common roadblock: the cost of a commercial kitchen. A small commercial kitchen equipped with the basics such as an oven, mixer, smallwares, hood and fire suppression, refrigerator, tables, and utensils could cost $50,000. And that assumes a building is already available, says David Schroeder, Executive Learning and Conference Center general manager at the University of Michigan Stephen M. Ross School of Business.
From home kitchen to dessert boutique
Not one to be deterred, Simmons turned to an incubator kitchen, a shared commercial kitchen space that allows an early-stage business to gain footing before investing in its own facilities. "I used Detroit Kitchen Connect and was one of the inaugural businesses into the program," Simmons says. "Using an incubator kitchen cuts the overhead of having a building tremendously."
Detroit Kitchen Connect is a program of
Eastern Market Corporation. It helps entrepreneurs like Simmons find licensed commercial kitchens where they can safely and legally produce their food products by reserving time slots at a local kitchen. Some of the kitchens are unused much of the week. Opening them up to entrepreneurs makes use of the otherwise underutilized space.
Simmons began baking in the very small church basement kitchen of Saints Peter and Paul Orthodox Christian Cathedral. "Even with something that small and very simple that we were able to get Starlett access to, it opens up so much," says Aaron Egan, head chef at Eastern Market and kitchen manager for Detroit Kitchen Connect.
Where fulfilling a large cookie order for the Detroit Lions may have taken her all day in her home kitchen, she was able to crank it out in short order in the new space.
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Bundt cake made by Five Star
Simmons was also able to test whether a larger-scale business was right for her. It was. "She was one of the first to move over to the main Eastern Market kitchen, which is a little more equipped because it was purpose-built," says Egan.
The Detroit Kitchen Connect network of incubator kitchens was piloted by Eastern Market and FoodLab Detroit.
"It really was born out of this need to be a clearinghouse and have a good list of incubator kitchens available in the Detroit area," Egan says. "It's very difficult for someone to start with something small in today's global marketplace. The incubator projects allow people space to grow."
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Simmons at work in the kitchen
Simmons is proud to proclaim Five Star Cake Co. Dessert Boutique & Bakery as the home of the best carrot cake in Detroit. "My concept of a dessert boutique is to offer nostalgic desserts that you can't find anywhere else or every day. I want to provide an atmosphere like grandma's kitchen," she says.
While Simmons first created the taste of grandma's kitchen out of her own home, then out of Detroit Kitchen Connect incubator kitchens, she eventually outgrew both. "I have always known that I wouldn't be in an incubator kitchen long-term," she says. "It's not set up for that purpose."
After working out of shared kitchens for four years, Simmons was finally ready to for the grand opening of her own dessert boutique location in Roseville this February. Customers purchase Five Star cakes from her Roseville shop, or in June at Eastern Market and Northwest Detroit Farmers' Market.
"My business has absolutely changed my life and career path," says Simmons, who left the corporate world to bake. "Children grow so fast and when I worked for someone else I was missing very important milestones. I now get to mentor my daughter, who is an aspiring pastry chef and also works at my bakery. I've always wanted to feel as though I was contributing to the world."
An idea grown in a field
While one may not notice what a startup Detroit-area baker and a pair of third-generation rural Michigan farmers have in common, both are small business owners who relied on food incubator kitchens to launch their dreams.
Bonnie and Dan Blackledge are crop farmers in Marion, located between Cadillac and Clare. They began growing canola in 2007 and marketed their 100-acre canola crop the traditional way—having it trucked to Canada. The Blackledges wondered about adding value to their own canola by processing it themselves. But canola oil for cooking wasn't on their minds at first.
They began to work on a project making biodiesel from the seeds. That's when they took a sharp turn down their entrepreneurial path. "We found that the best use for the seed, and the best profit, was in selling the seed as a food product," Bonnie Blackledge explains. It turned out cold-pressed canola oil was the answer they were seeking. That's when
B & B Farms Canola Oil was born.
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Bonnie Blackledge displays product from B & B Famrs
The Blackledges needed a space to cold press and bottle the canola oil, so they turned to Starting Block, an incubator kitchen in Hart, near the state's Lake Michigan coast.
"We definitely believe it helped with our success," Blackledge says. "The staff at the kitchen walked us through the process to get licensed by MDARD (Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development) and helped us get what we needed to pass inspection. They put us in contact with a company that sold bottles, another that printed labels, and connected us with another client who made a bread-dipping spice for oil that we used in demos. ... I'm not sure what we would have done if no incubator kitchen would have been available."
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Cold pressed canola oil from B & B Farms
The Blackledge's used the Starting Block kitchen fir two years before going on their own. After graduating out of the incubator in 2013, B & B Farms Canola Oil was made in a small, on-farm, licensed kitchen attached to the Blackledge home. Recently, they were able to quadruple the size of the facility by renovating an old dairy barn and turning the clean and safe former milking parlor into their cold-pressing site. Most bottles of the culinary favorite are sold at groceries and specialty stores throughout Michigan, and feature the Pure Michigan logo.
MSU Product Center lends a hand
The food incubator staff at Starting Block also helped the Blackledges make business connections. "They fostered our relationship with the MSU Product Center, which has helped us in many ways," Blackledge says.
Both Simmons and Blackledge sought help from the
Michigan State University Product Center, which helps budding or established businesses in food, agriculture, or natural resources to develop and commercialize products and services.
Entrepreneurs seek help from the organization at various stages. A startup might consider whether an idea is worthy or get assistance with a business plan, while an existing business might seek help with navigating regulations, food safety, or strategic planning.
"We work with businesses at all levels," says Brenda Reau, senior associate director of the MSU Product Center. "Folks that are starting at their kitchen table all the way up to larger businesses, some very large."
When businesses are new, Reau suggests they seek MSU Product Center advice early in the process. "We like to work with people who are in what we call the 'concept development stage' because many times people have an idea, but they're not sure is it something they can turn into a viable business or not. There's a process we put them through that helps them see, is this going to be a viable business? Is this a marketable concept? Is the market already saturated?"
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Harvesting canola at B & B Farms
Reau suggests entrepreneurs visit the MSU Product Center web page and click on
request for counseling. From there, information is reviewed and a business is matched with an innovation counselor.
Michigan State University Extension educator Jerry Lindquist was one professional who worked with Bonnie and Dan Blackledge. "They explored and strategized methods to add value to their products by bottling cooking canola oil to offset the high shipping cost of transporting seed to Windsor, Ontario," he says. "And they survived the run-up in corn and soybean prices by continuing to grow canola while others chased those higher-priced grains. They are one of the few growers left in the state of Michigan successfully raising canola today."
Different goals, same solution
While Starlett Simmons sought to make Five Star Cake Co. Dessert Boutique & Bakery her full-time career, Bonnie and Dan Blackledge set out to supplement their existing farm income with B & B Farms Canola Oil. Both found help at Michigan food incubator kitchens.
"We've seen a real foray into this area with the economic climate in Michigan," Reau says. "Certainly the economic climate over the last six to eight years in Michigan has propelled innovation on the part of people."
"Our canola oil business is something that Dan and I have been able to do together, and we have involved our family members along the way," Blackledge says. "We're not going to get rich quick, but our motivation for doing this was mostly to add value to a farm product and enjoy the satisfaction of sharing our product with our customers."
Sue Stuever Battel is a freelance agricultural writer born and raised in the Thumb of Michigan.