and report back to numerous rural communities who’ve expressed interest in having a community kitchen/incubator in their region. Last month, I returned to check on the kitchen’s progress. Packaging Royal Red Sauce at Mountain Harvest Kitchen (Photo courtesy of Get Comfort Food) The grants stipulated that the kitchen would support farmers and food product entrepreneurs in seven counties for 20 years within a 50-mile radius that includes Tennessee, North Carolina, and Virginia. After a decade of building collaborations and securing funding with regional, state, and federal funding, his dream of providing an economic engine for food entrepreneurs in a struggling region had come to fruition. The smell of baked goods filled the air.ĭuring that initial tour, I sat down with Unicoi’s then-mayor, Johnny Lynch. Bright stainless-steel workstations filled the center of the room. But it rivaled incubator kitchens I’d seen in Portland, Oregon. It’s located in a town of 3,600 and a county with about 18,000 residents. I first discovered this kitchen a year after its 2017 grand opening.

The kitchen is a rare find for any region, but in tiny towns like Unicoi where jobs are scarce, it’s a much-treasured opportunity.

These are just a few of the businesses launched through Mountain Harvest Kitchen (MHK), a rural, state-of-the-art, 4,000-square-foot food incubator nestled in Blue Ridge Mountains of Northeast Tennessee. A pop-up caterer who found refuge during Covid-19. A food service serving meals on wheels to the elderly. A baker returning to her small-town roots.

Incubator kitchen marketing