Food, among the oldest industry, has always needed an ecosystem such as a coworking space catering to food entrepreneurs, enthusiasts, hobbyists (such as me who wants to occasionally intern in a place just so I can learn a new cuisine or a cooking method to stimulate my curiosity) and those who aspire to convert their passion into a business but lack the commercial guidance required to take the next step. Fortunately, fellow food industry entrepreneurs, chefs, associations, and also a book publisher have responded to this glaring yet unfulfilled need thus providing a platform to bring dreams to realities.  

COOKBEYOND: Kowloon, HK. Located in the San Po Kong industrial area, CookBeyond is a community of food professionals following their love for food and cooking. Offering fully installed commercial kitchens supported by encouraging and knowledgable friendly members help is a table away. Equipped with necessities of an office: wifi, meeting rooms and printers it is a one-stop shop for your business. Finally topped with a host of events conducted by industry veterans to help your business grow, it is the best place in Hong Kong to start your food business.

The Food Loft: Located in Boston, US, it is a coworking space dedicated to food innovation and success of food startups. An initiative funded by food publishing veteran, The Harvard Common Press, it is a part coworking space and part incubator. They have housed and worked with businesses tackling major food challenges, and have a long list of successful startups passing through its doors. With the aim to provide an ecosystem to the fragmented food industry, The Food Loft provides value-added services such as partnerships, early-stage investment and resources. Additionally, their biggest asset is the long and impressive list of mentors on their Rolodex to help and support the businesses. If nothing else, getting access to successful professionals who are willing to pass on their knowledge and experience in itself is a huge head start for an aspiring entrepreneur. The only thing we hope they could add is a kitchen facility to the mix.

Food Central: Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. More and more local associations and bodies are getting involved with coworking and bringing their communities together by providing common space to work and collaborate. So did the Agriculture and Food Council of Alberta setting up Food Central in 2017 with a focus on agriculture and food businesses. Offering walk-in hot desks, private offices, meeting rooms, kitchen and other office facilities. Offering a cohesive environment filled with people from the food industry it has a natural gravitational pull for food entrepreneurs in Edmonton. It is a space where you could host a tasting session, conduct a focus group survey with industry people or utilise the other resources the association has at its disposal including mentors. On a closing note for those who want to experience coworking, Food Central offers a once a month, a free day coworking space.

Mission Kitchen: London, UK. Spurred by their experience of starting a food business and lack of available resources, support system and no easy way to solve challenges, the six founders, taking a page out of other industries coworking spaces, launched in 2019, the Food Mission. They aim to ease the starting up the journey for the new 15,000 food startups that are launched each year in the UK. With ready to use kitchen options from a shared kitchen, kitchen studio (a private kitchen) and on-demand kitchen hire they service dreamers to the professionals. Equipped with dedicated prep space, ovens, shared specialist equipment, refrigerated and dry storage space options, it is a food entrepreneurs dream. Most entrepreneurs lack the funding to buy the specialist equipment and having access to this at affordable prices, on monthly rolling contracts is a sweet deal. Supported by an enthusiastic coworking community working out of the coworking space there will always be someone to try your product, give feedback and provide the much-needed encouragement. Opening in two locations, one in New Covent Garden Market in Vauxhall and the other as a part of Lambeth Council\'s LJ Works local workspace project in Loughborough Junction, Brixton. A Food Maker’s Academy cookery school, Sourdough Starter library, and Sustainable Food Incubator will be part of the Vauxhall coworking space. While a Community Kitchen, Skills and Career training, a Bakery incubator and an on-site Urban farm are the highlights of the Loughborough Junction, Brixton coworking space. It is an exciting project and perhaps the most ambitious of all the food coworking projects around the world

Branchfood: Boston, US. With a mission to make New England a leading food hub, branchfood, a  coworking space tailored to the serve the needs of food entrepreneurs. With the noble vision to provide healthy food to every person on the planet through technology and innovation, they took the first step in that direction by launching the branchfood coworking space and ecosystem. Their coworking community comprises of entrepreneurs, mentors, investors, professionals, food-related organisations who come together for developing New Haven food businesses. Similar to other coworking spaces branchfood also provide resource portal and highly informative blog. Their 5 part series Five Food Startups Winning the Brand Battle and Know your entrepreneur series, focusses on the journeys of new entrepreneurs, their inspirations, motivations, challenges and how did they create a successful food business. For an aspiring entrepreneur this community us perfect launch pad to interact and learn from the community. They also have the opportunity to present at the monthly investor meet to seasoned investors and VC.

Worksmith: Collingwood, Australia. A curious community of like-minded professionals from varied background form a part of this vibrant coworking community. Set up to answer the question “ what do people in hospitality and beverage industry need and not getting now”, the community supports members via events, desks, flexible memberships, industry resources, workshops and most importantly a commercial kitchen. It is well laid out and stocked with combi steam oven, induction hobs, deep fryers, refrigerator, freezer and dishwasher. It can be rented hourly, or for a one-off event and also on periodic pre-booked time slots. They have a twice a month event schedule and a  \"Front Desk\" series, in which they host talks focussed on hospitality related topics and some deep dives in food and beverage led by its team which has a successful history in Food and Beverage Industry.

URBANCAMPUS & GASTRO EMPRENDEDORES: Madrid, Spain. Among all kinds of entrepreneurial businesses, food entrepreneurship is perhaps the most misunderstood and deceivingly easy to the untrained eye. Hence the industry reports most failures within 12 months of launch. The most common reason for failure is underestimating the financial commitment which comes due to lack of operational experience of running a food business. The other is just not testing the product market fit before making commitments on the space, interiors and furniture. An interesting partnership between a coworking space and food incubator right in the heart of Madrid, coined as a Cocooking space is the answer to for the Madrid’s aspiring food entrepreneurs challenges and getting the odds of success in their favour. URBANCAMPUS FOODLAB is equipped with top kitchen facilities, and the coworking community provide an ideal place and focus group for testing your ideas, building your product and venue space to host your tasting event. Gastro Emprendedores provides a 5-month incubator programme, funding help, mentorships from leading professionals from the food and beverage industry and the support required to incorporate a company and connections to the right people and corporates.

HatchKitchen: Richmond, US. An incubator with a commercial kitchen on a mission to help grow business quickly and smartly. They provide extensive equipment, pods for people who need private spaces, storage, walk-in refrigerators and freezer space. The uniqueness of this coworking space is you can sell your product in their café thus enabling access to focus group and real-time feedback. Unlike other coworking spaces their multiple membership options cater to the knowledge and infrastructure gap rather than just private or share office space. They spread it in four types- Satellite, monthly access to mentors, startup education, shared space and wifi. Batch package charged hourly provides all these plus kitchen access for 10 hours each month. For those who are already running a flourishing business, they provide two options A La Cart where you get 24/7 kitchen access along with coworking perks mentioned earlier and the best of all Prix Fixe which has all the features other packages have plus one prep table, two storage shelves and 165 square feet of dedicated work area. Kitchen access includes shared equipment, ice maker, loading dock access, lockers, key fob entry, waste recycling and composting.  

Forage Kitchen: A shared coworking space and kitchen set up in Oakland, US established with the mission to grow the local food economy by helping its participants. With a well-equipped kitchen, stocked with the best equipment it is a perfect place to test your ideas, get early adopter feedback and access to training and help in the kitchen. The kitchen is stocked with 16stainless steel and butcher black prep tables, dishwasher with helpers, bakers rack, personal reach-in freezers, pot burners, charbroiler, tilting skillet, cooking range, mixer and slicer, double stack convection ovens, dry storage. Similar to Hatch Kitchen you can sell your food in their café, use the coworking space for meeting potential clients and partners. A key value adds in the space is Co-packing.  A service that provides marketing, administrative help and other numerous tasks out of the kitchen an entrepreneur has to perform.