The Freedom Kitchen is a Commercial Kitchen Co-op and Culinary Business Incubator that acts as a food production and business development resource and incubator for artisan food businesses in the South Puget Sound.©
The Freedom Kitchen is pre-revenue collaboration between Rhonda Hamlin, founder and owner of The Art of Crunch, and Jennifer Phillips, founder and owner of Oh Sugar. Both women are b
akers and visionaries who discovered the significant need for their new business model while running their own baked goods companies out of a commercial rental kitchen in Tacoma. Both are single moms with a deep desire to be examples to their daughters of strong, successful, independent business owners. Both are committed to giving back to their community by providing an environment that empowers businesses to grow with strong supports, common vision and integrity, and shared desire to improve and impact the local community. The vision for the Freedom Kitchen Coop includes a tiered membership and rental model that allows for and encourages shared investment in the creation, processes and outcomes of the Kitchen and its member businesses. The hub of this community will be a commercial kitchen space that will accommodate at least 20 individual enterprises ranging from fledgling startups, to food trucks, to established food service businesses. Both of the founders businesses will be members of the coop. The coop concept expands to include shared investment and participation in such things as, business and product development processes, access to shared outsources like consultants and professional services and commitment to a vision of community participation. This is part of the incubator model. Rhonda and Jennifer are planning to offer cooking, baking and food prep classes to the public as revenue source. Members will have the opportunity to transfer their skills to others while adding to their own bottom lines and potentially training new staff and fellow entrepreneurs. An additional revenue source will be retail offerings of the coop members’ products. Plans for a store front will allow for retail sales and visibility of the Kitchen and its offerings. Featured food trucks will also serve outside the Kitchen space as an added element to the retail revenue and exposure. Another potential revenue source will be catering services which may combine member food offerings. This team has a passion for helping others to reach their dreams. They are working with local community colleges to provide internships and jobs for their food service programs and graduates, as well as the economic development departments of target cities (Lakewood and Tacoma) to investigate job growth initiatives that might serve both entities. Rhonda’s five years of experience starting and growing the Art of Crunch combine with her work with a local catering company prepares her for a leadership role in this new venture. Her prior successful career with Nordstrom’s guarantees her efforts always reflect a commitment to excellence. Jennifer is a graduate of the Pastry Arts Program at Clover Park, and studied Pastry Making in France. She brings her successful tenure of operational management background in the casino, commercial kitchen and catering industries and her entrepreneurial spirit to the Freedom Kitchen.
