Growing your food business takes time, space, and resources. Making and selling food out of your home isn’t a realistic way to build up your business, but the cost of building your own commercial kitchen is typically so high that it can cause even the most ambitious food maker to put a ceiling on their dreams — and that’s before you take into account the significant regulation and licensing hurdles in the commercial food prep business.

Luckily, it doesn’t have to be this way. For food businesses looking to scale up their production, renting space in a commissary kitchen is a great way to manage all of these challenges.

WHAT IS A COMMISSARY KITCHEN?

Commissary kitchens are commercial kitchens where multiple chefs and other culinary professionals rent kitchen space to prepare, package, and store their food. Some of these kitchens are rented hourly or daily and shared among multiple users and are designed to cater to those just getting started. Others are leased exclusively to one user at a time over a longer period often a year at a time and are often better for those that have begun to see success with their food business.

Commissary kitchens come in many sizes and with a variety of additional offerings and support for those working in packaged consumer goods, making food for food trucks, or allowing restaurants and others to extend production space. But regardless of your place in the food industry, a commissary kitchen can be incredibly useful for achieving your goals. Here is a list of the many benefits for forward-thinking food company owners.

LOWER UPFRONT COST

While the cost of rent in a commissary kitchen is important in calculating your production costs, for many food companies a commercial kitchen in the right kind of facility delivers efficiencies up to 10 times of an equivalent sized space that you build out on your own. The spaces are delivered with features that reduce your upfront costs versus the many expenses of buying and retrofitting a brick-and-mortar space of your own, many of which are hard to estimate ahead of time.

In many cases, the price of renting a commissary kitchen is more affordable than manufacturing at a food co-packer, which often comes with a number of hidden fees that can add up fast.

A HIGHER LEVEL OF PRODUCTION

Commissary kitchens offer additional space and new avenues for developing and producing products in large quantities. More room equals space for production lines and equipment that can help your business scale up faster than ever before. Commissary kitchens are an essential part of the growth path for many food businesses looking to meet the requirements of health departments and private buyers who demand exclusive production areas as well as storage, loading docks and other amenities to help meet food safety mandates.

INCREASED QUALITY CONTROL AND FLEXIBILITY

Food companies want to maximize their control over their processes, production and products. Working in a commissary kitchen, especially one that provides full-time private space for rent, puts the production process completely in your hands. The bigger spaces and wide variety of tools and amenities give food makers the opportunity to experiment with their recipes, fine-tune their menu, develop their processes and very importantly, to scale your production way up.

The flexibility provided by commissary kitchens also allows tenants to respond to production challenges much quicker than they would otherwise be able to if they didn’t fully control the process. Food companies working with co-packers may find it more difficult to get the right amount of attention and line time and quickly find solutions as problems come up. That won’t be an issue in a commissary kitchen because you retain full control of your production.

MORE EFFICIENCY

Working in a commissary kitchen allows culinary professionals to focus on the thing that matters the most: the food. The owner of the kitchen space will take care of the facility approvals and permits, and they will help you stay up to date with the latest health and safety regulations. (You still need to do your part to comply with the facility and health department rules for keeping the kitchen clean and making sure your products and processes are in line with all other food safety requirements, including obtaining your operator-related health permits.) That, combined with the larger spaces make working in a commissary kitchen easier and more efficient. They can also provide networking opportunities for building future growth and finding new connections to help you in meeting the challenges of growing your business.

HOW TO CHOOSE THE RIGHT COMMISSARY KITCHEN FOR YOU

Before finding a kitchen to rent, it’s important to consider what kind of commissary kitchen works best for your needs. Make sure the facility you choose can accommodate your business as it operates today and also where you hope to be in six months and a year or more. Moving is costly and difficult so thinking ahead and finding a place that provides maximum flexibility will pay dividends. You can make the right choice by following this checklist:

• Production Time. Determine how much production time you expect to need on a monthly and weekly basis (it helps to also know the days and times of the week). The more time spent in production, the more likely an exclusive, private space in a commissary facility will best serve you. Generally speaking, when you are in production more than 20 hours a week, an exclusive full-time space will likely be your best option.
• Storage and Amenities. Specify your anticipated storage needs including for raw ingredients, packaging and finished products, and how much of this will be in dry, refrigerated, or frozen storage. Go through what other amenities you may need to support your operations including office space, packaging rooms, USDA office, and others.
• Location. Define a search area for locations that are accessible for you and your workers and for facilities that will work with the health permits you need (retail vs. wholesale) for your business.
• Equipment Specifications. Define your equipment requirements and how much of this equipment you have access to already versus what you expect to be included in your production space already. If you are looking at hourly kitchens, confirm that they have equipment that will work for your products as well as short-term and long-term storage. If you are more established and looking into a full-time commissary kitchen, gather a detailed list of the specifications of the production equipment you will need to bring to the space to make sure your space has adequate power, gas, water, and ventilation infrastructure for that equipment. It is also essential to make sure any commissary kitchens you are considering have the right hood systems, HVAC, grease interceptors, and plumbing to support your operations.
• Product Specific Requirements. Review whether your product specifications (gluten-free, kosher, vegan or others) require full control over your production environment. Certain specifications cannot be assured in a shared kitchen where you cannot control what others are doing in the same space.
• Flexibility/Future Growth. Review your plans for the future so that you select a space that will let you follow the growth of your company wherever it takes you. Try to identify a space that offers multiple room options and support amenities that will give you the flexibility to pursue your growth wherever it takes you.

DIFFERENT TYPES OF COMMISSARY KITCHENS

SHARED COMMERCIAL KITCHEN

Shared commercial kitchens are the most common form of commissary kitchens. They often include cooking equipment already installed, and many also provide limited access to storage space. Since these spaces are shared by different tenants and assuming you are working less than 20 hours per week, the rent can be lower than other options as you usually only pay for the time you use. The low cost of entry generates competition and can make finding a shared kitchen in your preferred time slot more difficult. Shared commercial kitchens are the best choice for businesses making smaller batches of food for a smaller audience.

PRIVATE COMMERCIAL KITCHEN

As you can tell by the name, private commercial kitchens are rented exclusively by one company for a period of one month, one year, or more. You have full-time access to the space as well as on-site storage, and accessories. That privacy comes with a commitment to regular monthly rent which, depending on your hours of operation, may even mean a lower price tag if you are working close to full time, and that many see, when bundled with the amenities and other supports, is usually well worth it. These exclusive kitchens are best for people who want to sell to stores and other larger buyers, and/or who need to achieve gluten- or allergen-free, kosher, organic, or other certifications and who need to install more specialized equipment and/or need longer periods of time in the kitchen.

RENTING A RESTAURANT’S KITCHEN

Some food companies look to find an existing restaurant’s kitchen to sublease during the restaurant’s off-hours. The challenge is that permitting requirements for producing food out of a third-party restaurant kitchen often makes this impossible for most food makers who generally need to produce at scale and meet higher standards of quality and safety.

NON-TRADITIONAL SOURCES

Commissary kitchens may also be found in the least expected places. Churches, community centers, and other buildings with built-in kitchens may be willing to rent out their spaces for a low price during their off-hours as well. But similar to renting a restaurant’s kitchen, the amenities and the hours are reliant on another party, and permitting challenges may make these infeasible for any kind of production at scale.

HOW AMPED KITCHENS CAN HELP YOUR BUSINESS SCALE FASTER THAN EVER

We’ve explained why commissary kitchens in general can be essential to the food production process. But why should you choose Amped Kitchens in particular? The answer for many is that there is no better place for growing a successful food business. Amped Kitchens offers you speed, scale, and flexibility, often at a fraction of the price as compared to other production options.

Amped’s tenants can start manufacturing in weeks and save 94% on startup costs on average as contrasted with building out a space on your own. Companies that try to build their own kitchen can take over a year to get going and incur tremendous costs and find themselves distracted from their primary business of making food. Building out your own kitchen may also force a company into longer-term commitments to justify the up-front costs which make it hard to remain agile and pivot in response to changes in the marketplace. By contrast, Amped Kitchens are built to support the growth and enhance the flexibility of successful food businesses.

Tenants at Amped Kitchens are afforded unprecedented flexibility because as their requirements change, they can easily move to larger or smaller rooms thanks to the thousands of square feet at our facilities and the multiple kitchen size and amenity options. Our spaces are up to ten times larger than the spaces of our competitors and five to ten times the productivity of similar-sized spaces if you get a stand-alone space. Amped Kitchens provides ample dry, refrigerated and frozen storage and other key on-site amenities for supporting your food business. Our in-house logistics team keeps operations running smoothly and maintains high standards of cleanliness by working with public health agencies to streamline licensing and permitting for Amped Kitchens’ tenants.

With Amped Kitchens, you’ll get all the support you’ll need to perfect your products and production, and grow your business. If you have any questions about our kitchens, please contact us any time.