Animals Australia: the voice for animals

Animals Australia: the voice for animals
Love life? Love all of life

Friday, August 10, 2007

A step up to a start-up: social enterprise catering

Clockwise from top left:
1 & 2: AfriTas Restaurant, Hobart; 3 La Cocina, San Francisco; 4 Smart Cuisine, Clayton; 5 & 6 Sorghum Sisters, Carlton
Reading about La Cocina in San Francisco has stimulated this post. How many women and men who are interested in food and who are good cooks have not dreamed about a restaurant or a coffee shop? Somewhere between few and none is Miss Eagle's guess. For immigrant women for whom English is not their first language, who have limited or no resources, and risk social isolation, one of their exits could be the communal commercial kitchen.
Refugee organisations have assisted in this regard in Australia. African immigrants and refugees put their energies into AfriTas in Hobart in a very systematic operation which has had great success.
But Miss Eagle would like to know more. Where are there other social enterprises such as these operating in communal commercial kitchens? Are there business incubator enterprises such as La Cocina operating in Australia for women who are not immigrants or refugees who may want to consider starting up a food enterprise? How easy and how cheap is it to rent a commercial kitchen - say in Melbourne or Sydney - for a short period (say one day per week)?
In a world that appears dominated by celebrity chefs, can we explore together, dear Reader, the world of the start-up?

3 comments:

Lucy said...

Miss Eagle, I noticed your comment on Shula's blog (Poppalina).

Hope your okay...

Unknown said...

Thank you Lucy. The flu left about ten days ago (writing on 070917) but recovery is upsy-downsy and intermittent. To-day has been a down day - but have managed to blog so must be improving.

Blessings and bliss

Anonymous said...

Thanks to a little luck and easy-to-get national restaurant funding, I was easily able to achieve my dreams of owning my own deli. It's so unfortunate that not everyone is as lucky.

ShareThis