SOUTH PORTLAND, Maine — Fork Food Lab upgraded their facilities about a year ago from a 5,200-square-foot space in Portland to a 30,000-square-foot space in South Portland.
Nearly 200 businesses have utilized nonprofit's kitchen space and other commercial-grade equipment in the past six years.
Bill Seretta, the executive director of Fork Food Lab, said they have been utilizing several grants from the U.S. Department of Agriculture that have allowed them to better support local food entrepreneurs.
“We have three grants spread over six years, and they're extremely valuable because they provide funding for things that we normally wouldn't be able to do," Seretta said. "Our members pay fees to be here, but that just covers basic operations. When we want to expand or move into the areas we talked about on the tour, we're getting more equipment for our members. We depend on these grants, whether they be USDA grants in this case or private funding, which is harder to get.”
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USDA Deputy Secretary Xochitl Torres Small and Rep. Chellie Pingree, D-Maine, toured Fork Food Lab this week.
“One of the great things when you have someone from the USDA come to your state is that they can kind of see first-hand what works and what doesn't work," Pingree said. "They'll hear a lot in the roundtable about what the farmers and other people have made use of but also what's been challenging and what could be tailored to work better in our state. That's one of the really great reasons to have the deputy secretary here today."
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“Fork Food Lab is more than Fork Food Lab, and that's very obvious, whether it's the 80-plus members that participate or use space here or whether it’s the impact it has on local farms and on the regional economy," Small said. "That's why the Biden administration is so invested in investing in Maine when it comes to the impact that it will have for small farmers and for the local regional food system, as well as for Maine’s economy.”
Small said the Biden-Harris administration has invested more than $1 billion in funds to Maine and specifically to Fork Food Labs more than $1 million in grants and $5.6 million in guaranteed loans.
Seretta said there’s still more work to be done with the facility.
“This is a 30,000-square-foot space in total, of which 20,000 are complete or almost complete," Seretta explained. "This last 10,000 is under construction, but we got to raise another $3 million to finish these spaces, which includes, meat processing, vegetable processing, a palletized freezer, an event space that that will be open for public events with a menu from all of our members, and then a pop-up restaurant.”