A few weeks ago, FEED Kitchens had some electrical work done at our facility and added 260 amps of service to the building, added outdoor outlets to the west side of our building, and had some other minor repair work done. Normally, I wouldn’t dedicate a column to this type of upgrade, but, as routine as it may seem, this work is significant.
This November FEED Kitchens will be celebrating its tenth anniversary, and activity here is at its highest level since we opened. This success is bringing even more food businesses our way. No one could have predicted 10 years ago that FEED Kitchens would be so busy that the existing electrical service to the building would be maxed out to the point that one more piece of equipment turned on could pop a circuit breaker.
No one could have predicted 10 years ago that FEED Kitchens would host so many food carts that we would have to put a moratorium on accepting any more, leaving some later summer arrivals without production space. No one could have predicted 10 years ago that FEED would be so integral to our local food system that 16 vendors operating here participated in Taste of Madison this past Labor Day weekend.
After 10 years and graduating more than 30 food businesses into our local food system, FEED Kitchens is more viable and important to our local food infrastructure than ever before. Now that fall has arrived and things are slowing down at FEED, we will be busying ourselves planning for the next 10 years of food business incubation and taking some time to reflect upon and celebrate our successes.
Our big celebration will be the Taste the Future event at Warner Park Community Recreation Center Nov. 3, but we will be celebrating in other ways throughout the rest of 2023 and into 2024 as well. We welcome you to join us.
