Sussex County welcomes a kitchen incubator

We’re always out here supporting entrepreneurship in Delaware, even when it doesn’t align perfectly with the state’s tech ecosystem. Case in point: We love the Wilmington Kitchen Collective, a downtown startup incubator and accelerator offering resources, business support and, most importantly, access to a commercial kitchen for food industry entrepreneurs. It’s helped boost food trucks, caterers and specialty packaged foods in the Wilmington area since 2021.

I was excited to learn that Sussex County Economic Development has launched another kitchen incubator in Georgetown at Delaware Technical Community College. Like the Wilmington Kitchen Collective, Sussex Kitchen allows relevant founders to comply with the Delaware Environmental Health Department’s requirement that all food businesses must have a licensed preparation space — good for consumers, but a huge barrier for some entrepreneurs.

The downstate location will add licensed kitchen access to farmers who want to sell packaged or prepared foods, as well as rural home-based food businesses.

There is no list of participating entrepreneurs on the Sussex Kitchen website yet, but you can check out the Wilmington Kitchen Collective’s entrepreneurs (that link has others to follow the ventures on social media) if you want to spice up the upcoming holidays with local goods.