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"Fast forward four years later, she's the owner of her own company. Business is booming. She's growing her business. . . . we can't fast forward to three generations from now, but the trajectory of her family, I guarantee you, has been changed forever."
Early last month I chatted with Executive Director, Patricia Loya, about La Cocina, a San Francisco incubator kitchen for women. The mission of La Cocina is to cultivate food entrepreneurs as they formalize and grow their businesses by providing affordable commercial kitchen space, industry-specific technical assistance, and access to market opportunities. They focus primarily on women from culturally diverse and immigrant communities.
Below is an edited transcript of the interview, which you can also listen to on the Big Vision Podcast site, or through the iTunes Music Store. Our conversation began with Patricia explaining the need that La Cocina fills.
Patricia Loya: La Cocina fills a need that no other organization in the Bay Area fills, and that is that we provide intensive one-on-one technical assistance, access to markets, and a full state-of-the-art commercial kitchen facility to people who otherwise would not have access to those resources: mainly women, low-income immigrants, and other people like that in our community.
Specifically, you might see in the Mission District a low-income immigrant woman who is selling tamales that she made out of her home. She's doing this because her family doesn't have enough income and she's patching her family's income in the best way she can. By doing it that way, her business is not going to grow, but she's at least making ends meet.
If a person like that has the dream and the vision to start their own food business, a legitimate food business, and they want to do the hard work that it takes to get that done, we at La Cocina can help them. A person like that would apply to our program, and we'd see if they meet our basic requirements. Then we'd also see if they have what it takes to put in the hard work of starting a business.
If you fast forward four years later, that same woman now has a legitimate business that's been formalized. It has a business plan. She has her licenses. She is no longer cooking out of her home (it's illegal to cook out of your home and sell the food, though people do it). She's cooking out of a certified commercial kitchen facility. What does this mean for her business?
She now can sell to a Citibank luncheon. She can advertise her services for weddings. She can start saving up income to one day have her own restaurant. And in the course of that time she's gained enough skills to be able to do that, and that's what we're here for.
Are they two separate programs, the program that women apply to, and then the facility? Can people use the facility if they're not in the program, or are they intertwined?
Well, the facility is a super great resource in the community. The Mission District in San Francisco has a state-of-the-art commercial kitchen that's an envy. Whether you're a low-income immigrant person, or a French-trained chef, this is a fantastic kitchen to be in. We do rent some kitchen space to commercial users who are not part of our program, and we don't just accept and open the kitchen up to any commercial users. We are creating a space here that is supportive, and that helps a particular type of person advance, so we screen commercial tenants, but we do have some commercial users of the kitchen who are not part of the program.
You talked about it a little bit, but what are the skills that the women who go through the program learn?
Over the course of four years, they receive one-on-one technical assistance, workshops, and all type of training, mainly in five areas: sales, finances, operations, product development, and marketing. For instance, if we dive into the area of marketing, a woman may not have even thought of who her market is. What is her niche? What kind of logo does she want to have? Is she spunky and playful, or is she serious and soul food?
