Food-startup incubator FoodWorks acquires Maine location

Nick Devane is building an artisanal empire over at the Pfizer building, it would seem.

The founder of FoodWorks announced yesterday his company acquired a similar food incubator, Fork Food Lab, based in Portland, Maine, increasing FoodWorks’ locations to three.

According to Tech Cocktail, figures of the deal were not released, but FoodWorks bought 100 percent of Fork Food Lab, while the Food Lab owners will stay on and will also retain ownership of the real estate.

https://twitter.com/Ndevane/status/886024245784043520

FoodWorks’ Bed-Stuy headquarters includes a coworking space, cold storage, dishwashing service, a test kitchen, a temperature-controlled room for ice cream and chocolate making and a baking center, among other amenities. The idea is that food startups would have a place to get started making their product that’s not their kitchen. In the same way that coworking spaces work for software startups and freelancers, FoodWorks is way cheaper for entrepreneurs than renting their own space would be, and way better than working out of founders’ own apartment’s kitchens.

We profiled the company when it opened in February.

“Right now food is quite antiquated when it comes to distributors, power players and facilities,” Devane explained at the time. “We’re physically in Brooklyn but we can be that sort of AngelList for food. It’s digital infrastructure.”