Hope & Main Kitchen

a case study

The findings and conclusions in this publication are those of 

the author(s) and should not be construed to represent any 

official USDA or U.S. Government determination or policy.
Timeline

Introduction

Officially defined as “licensed commercial spaces that provide a pathway for food entrepreneurs to launch and grow 

their businesses1,” shared kitchens are a relatively new business development strategy. Despite this being a newly 

emerging sector, communities across the U.S. have adopted this strategy to enable diverse local food businesses to 

produce, store, and sell their products through a wide range of channels.

As a developing and dynamic sector of local and regional food systems, shared kitchens provide a valuable resource 

to communities seeking to address potential barriers to business development, including access to facilities and 

capital. A 2019 survey2 of 180 food business owners operating out of shared kitchens found that 50% of kitchen 

respondents were established within the last five years, and another 28% were established within the last 5-9 years. 

Additionally, more than half of the kitchens surveyed responded that their primary goal for using shared kitchens was 

to “assist early-growth businesses” in their communities. Chefs, caterers, food truck operators, bakers, value-added 

producers and packaged food and beverage makers are among the food business owners who utilize shared kitchens. 

To learn more about the dynamics of businesses using shared kitchens, the USDA Agricultural Marketing Service, 

Colorado State University, and the Food Corridor collaborated in 2021 to compile data about the role of shared 

kitchens in communities across the U.S. and the food business owners operating out of these facilities. This 

information is now available through a series of research briefs and case studies published by the USDA.

Hope & Main: Putting Its Vision into Action

Hope & Main is one of Rhode Island’s premier kitchen incubators. Since opening its doors in 2014, Hope & Main 

has graduated nearly 200 businesses from its incubator program with over 40 graduates now operating out of their 

own spaces. As a shared kitchen and food business incubator, Hope & Main provides multiple types of business 

support services, including business planning, marketing assistance, and food safety trainings, in addition to 

providing commercial kitchen equipment available to rent. This includes access to kitchen space, demos/classrooms, 

comprehensive curriculum, meeting spaces, packing/shipping services, and storage space. Food businesses that 

are accepted into the incubator program also receive extensive mentoring and immersion in an entrepreneurial 

environment where they can collaborate with industry experts and their peers. According to Luca Carnevale, the 

Executive Director of Operations at Hope & Main, “Kitchen members don’t just cook in the kitchen, they are a part of 

a community and Hope & Main happily helps its members realize their dreams.”

There are two long-standing businesses, Buppy Pets and Kane’s Kitchen, that have come out of Hope & Main. These 

businesses have shared their stories and journeys within and beyond Hope & Main to showcase the relationship they 

have with the kitchen, its role in their business development, and the value they found in its incubator services.

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Building a Place for Innovation

Hope & Main is in the smallest town in the smallest state, Rhode Island. When discussing their motivation for starting 

the kitchen, Luca stated “I think it was totally a ‘build it and they will come’ situation. Lisa [Raiola] was the founder of 

Hope & Main Kitchen. In Lisa’s story, by creating the kitchen she was very much scratching her own itch when she set 

out to start her own food business.”

The school where Hope & Main is now housed sat vacant for at least 10 years before the kitchen moved in, and they 

were required to get approval from the community for it to be used as a kitchen. Though Lisa might have initially 

been working to create the kitchen based on her own passions, the idea clearly had the backing of the community. 

According to Luca, “Lisa had to go to the town and the townspeople had to vote on her actually getting the building. 

She had to hit a quorum which was about 100 to 125 people. On a rainy night in October, 500 people showed up and 

everyone was excited to see something happen with the school building. All but 2 people voted for Lisa to take over 

the building and turn it into a kitchen incubator!” 

Now, Hope & Main’s signature business incubation program gives food and beverage businesses a low-risk 

opportunity to test, scale and develop their food concepts without the cost and liability in equipping, managing, and 

maintaining their own commercial culinary facility. They help their members avoid taking on significant debt typically 

associated with independent startups (i.e., purchasing equipment, renting their own space, etc.), so they can focus on 

building vibrant and sustainable food companies, while also feeding the surrounding community. Beyond just food 

production, Hope & Main works closely with each member to polish ideas and develop business models, as well as 

help cultivate customer connections and distribution opportunities.

Hope & Main kitchen members benefit from an array of facility resources that are included with their membership. 

These resources include the incubator program, additional courses for entrepreneurs, and access to market channels 

while also providing month to month leases for member flexibility. In the incubator program, food entrepreneurs 

are a part of a cohort that learn, grow, and shape their ideas together with the support of Hope & Main. The courses 

for entrepreneurs follow a curriculum that is designed by industry professionals for their peers, including courses on 

food safety, business planning, and marketing. Classes are taught by professionals who have already been through 

the process of starting and growing a food business, making them well positioned to help emerging entrepreneurs 

develop their products and teach them how to run a thriving, profitable business. 

Lauren (from Buppy Pets), an owner who also has a background in marketing and communications commented about 

how Hope & Main uses members’ backgrounds and expertise to help one another. “I’ve really utilized everything they 

had to offer. In turn, because of my background, I (a kitchen member and new business) was teaching a lot of classes 

to other members on marketing, social media, public relations, and how to create a website. They really use their 

members’ background and expertise to help current members brush up in areas that they’re not very comfortable 

with. It’s a really good community of people that just want to see you succeed.” 

Trafford (from Kane’s Kitchen) commented about how he utilized everything the kitchen offered to grow more 

quickly, “I think if you talk to people, share your ideas, and talk about your leads and new customers, I think you can 

grow a business much quicker in this environment because you’re around like-minded people that all have the same 

3

Hope & Main celebrates the opening 

of their Schoolyard Market season.
goal. I do utilize some of the things that are there besides the kitchen space, 

the kitchen is everything. It’s a community, a space to produce larger volumes 

of salsa, a hub, everything.” If it weren’t for Hope & Main, Trafford said he 

doesn’t know if he could have started a business. 

When reflecting on the broad set of equipment, business systems and 

services Hope & Main offers, Lauren focused on “the availability of the 

equipment that I can’t honestly afford right now. The pieces of equipment 

I use are very expensive, and there’s two or three pieces that I need for my 

production. The fact that Hope & Main had access to them, in a kitchen 

that was already approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) 

and Department of Health, it had enough space and availability and other 

resources. Being in a community where we’re all working towards the same 

goal is insanely awesome. I can definitely feel the solitude at times when 

creating a business, so you don’t feel as lonely when you’re in a group of 

people doing the same thing.”

The Ripple Effect Within the 

Community

Providing Access to Markets 

Hope & Main’s mission is to empower an inclusive community of 

entrepreneurs to jumpstart and cultivate thriving food businesses that are 

the foundation of a more just, sustainable, and resilient local food economy. 

In support of that mission, Hope & Main not only offers a shared kitchen 

space and business marketing services, but it also offers a wide variety of 

market channels and market exposure opportunities to its members. Hope & 

Main offers ServSafe certifications in Food Safety Manager Certifications, the 

Schoolyard Market, Nourish Our Neighbor Program, and access to the What’s 

Good online marketplace. 

In operation since 2012, Hope & Main’s Schoolyard Market is more than just a farmers market. It is a marketplace 

for engaging the public in its nonprofit mission, helping them foster a community of growing and thriving food and 

beverage companies. This year, the Schoolyard Market is just one element of a weekly celebration of local food at 

Hope & Main that also includes live music, grocery and meal pickups, and food trucks. The kitchen is located in the 

middle of a neighborhood and the farmers market is able to be on an adjacent property, a rare but valuable situation 

for the kitchen and its food enterprises. 

Hope & Main also launched the Nourish Our Neighbors program in response to the food access crisis brought on 

by the COVID-19 pandemic. This program, funded through generous donations, provides a nutritious meal cooked 

by kitchen members to food insecure community members. Since mid-2020, the program has provided over 40,000 

meals and a stable funding stream for kitchen members displaced by COVID-19 related closures. In an attempt 

to continue this program long-term, Hope & Main has created a buy one, give one program where anyone who 

purchases a meal for themselves also funds a meal for someone in the community. 

Hope & Main also has a relationship with What’s Good, an online market platform, which has allowed Hope & Main 

to become a drop-off and pick-up location every Wednesday for kitchen members and consumers. Lauren explained, 

“What’s Good is a mobile app opportunity that delivers the farmers market to your door. They do a bunch of fresh 

foods and everything you would normally get at a farmers market throughout the year, and they deliver it to your 

door. That company was brand new and then COVID hit, so What’s Good became a necessity and because we were 

already in a relationship with What’s Good our sales increased. It’s been really cool to have that opportunity early on.” 

Regarding his relationship with Hope & Main and their access to marketing channels, Trafford said “I tell people all 

the time, it works if you work it. Before COVID, I would hang out there in the kitchen a lot and do a lot of work there. 

I would get marketing opportunities just because I was there. I was in the faces of the people who run Hope & Main, 

and I was the first one they would think of when a call comes in for something. I got a few good opportunities, and 

those relationships are still there.”

What Hope & Main 

Provides

Equipment

Commercial kitchen of 6,600 sq ft

• Range

• Induction Cooktop

• Commercial Oven

• Convection Oven

• Commercial Grinder

• Steam Kettle

• Tilt Skillet

• Fryer

• Deck Oven

• Mixer

• Dough Sheeter

• Proofer

• Food Processor

• Food Mixer

• Food Slicer

• Vacuum Sealer

• Packaging Heat Seal

• Charbroiler

• Blast Freezer

• Bottling Line

• Prep Tables

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Words of Advice 

From the Kitchen 

“Remember there’s never enough storage and remain flexible. There’s always more than one way to do something.” 

– Luca Carnevale, Hope & Main Kitchen

From the Businesses

“You have to love it, there’s no right way to do it, and you do it at your own pace. Also, you have to work hard and 

most importantly, you have to take care of yourself.” 

– Lauren Ruggiero, Founder of Buppy Pets

“For anyone interested in beginning their own food start-up, you need to be a realist and have tenacity, it’s hard. You 

have to be fearless and don’t give up!” 

– Trafford Kane, Founder of Kane’s Kitchen

Endnotes

1 Meader McCausland, Dawn, Rachael Miller, Ashley Colpaart, Meghan King. 2018 

Shared Kitchen Toolkit: A Practical Guide to Planning, Launching and Managing a 

Shared-Use Commercial Kitchen. Fort Collins, CO: The Food

2 Econsult Solutions, Inc. 2020. U.S. Kitchen Incubators: An Industry Update. 

Retrieved from https://econsultsolutions.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/

Kitchen-Incubators-2019_1.14.20.pdf

What Hope & Main Provides

Member Benefits

Facility

• 24/7 access to facility 

• Meeting space

• Loading dock and pallet storage

• Space and accommodations for shipping, 

receiving, labeling, and packaging 

• Cold/dry storage

• Month to month leases for member flexibility

• Demonstration classroom

Discounts

• Discounted rates from Paychex

• Free and low-cost classes and workshops related 

to food and entrepreneurship

• 50% discount on all event spaces rentals 

• Discounted and associate memberships through 

the East Bay Chamber of Commerce, Rhode 

Island Hospitality and the American Culinary 

Federation and other professional groups

• Exclusive event invitations and registration 

discounts

Relationships

• Cooperative purchasing 

• Access to more than 80 direct buyers, including 

some automatic retail placements

• An amplified social media presence, sharing with 

more than 10,000 “followers” and “friends”

• Accelerated acceptance to Schoolyard Market 

and Meet Your Maker, with discounted stall rate 

Training and Technical Support 

• One-on-one assistance with licensing, 

certification, and permits 

• Equipment training 

• Process efficiency consultation 

• On-staff registered dietitian 

• A full slate of business and processing resources 

such as food scientists, pH testing, recipe scaling, 

branding, labeling, graphic design, costing of 

ingredients, nutrition facts

• Public relations consulting

5

Preferred Citation: USDA Ag Marketing 

Service and Colorado State University. 

2022. Hope & Main Kitchen: a Case 

Study. Primary contributors, L. Van, S. 

Schaffstall and D. Thilmany.

Photo Credits: Hope & Main

USDA is an equal opportunity provider, 

employer, and lender.

December 2022