Minister of State for Business, Employment and Retail Damien English has turned the sod on a €2.1m shared kitchen facility at the SPADE Enterprise Centre, which will provide increased capacity for food start-ups at the central Dublin site.
The new kitchen will service growing demand from food start-ups for affordable and flexible kitchen space, and will operate 15 hours per day, every day.
It is intended that the shared kitchen model will help start-ups with the high costs of setting up a new food business and thereby prevent early exits from business.
The kitchen will accommodate multiple food producers simultaneously with state-of-the-art kitchen facilities, along with best practice culinary and nutritional education, sectoral events and food cluster initiatives.
SPADE was approved funding from Enterprise Ireland under Regional Enterprise Development Funds towards the development of this new shared kitchen incubator.
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"Enterprise Ireland is delighted to support this project through the Regional Enterprise Development Fund," said Carol Gibbons, divisional manager for the regions and local enterprise at Enterprise Ireland.
"This new shared kitchen reflects the spirit of sustainable regional development promoting resource sharing to facilitate job creation, new product development and innovation.
"We congratulate Spade on their achievements to date in supporting new and growing food enterprises in Dublin.”
SPADE (St. Paul’s Area Development Enterprise CLG) has provided space for over 80 businesses contributing more than 250 jobs since its launch in 1990.
SPADE's main building on North King Street and allied premises currently accommodate 30+ businesses employing 155 staff, including social enterprises, innovative food companies, tech start-ups and professional services.
"This new facility will deliver a key piece of infrastructure for SPADE and will help new food entrepreneurs to enter the market and scale up," Minister English said.
"I am delighted that my Department and Enterprise Ireland have been able to assist this excellent venture with over €2.1 million provided through our Regional Enterprise Development Fund and Enterprise Centres Funding.
"I wish the entire team at SPADE every continued success as they embark on this new chapter.”
