Why Work With Union Kitchen?

At Union Kitchen, our mission is to build successful food businesses by empowering food founders with access to our roadmap, ecosystem, and industry expertise from launch to scale. So what does that mean for you? In this guide, we will walk through the benefits of joining our Accelerator, in particular how membership will help you launch faster and innovate smarter.

We understand that launching a business can be complex and challenging. Often there is no clear roadmap to getting your product on a shelf and growing beyond that. Our Accelerator guides you through the process of launching, growing, and scaling your business using our extensive experience in the CPG food industry. As part of our Accelerator, we provide access to our Ecosystem of Kitchen, Distribution, and Stores. Accelerator members leverage each part of this Ecosystem to get into market at a rate that’s seven times faster than the national average. In working with hundreds of food businesses and running quarterly Accelerator cohorts for several years, we’ve built out our Accelerator on demand courses and group sessions based on key concepts essential for accelerating your growth. Our Accelerator saves you time, resources, and capital to streamline your path to launch. 

Our members gain access to our commercial Kitchen facility that is USDA Organic and USDA meat inspected to manufacture their product and become part of our community of food founders. You’ll learn how to scale your recipe through owning your manufacturing, empowering you with agility in decision-making and defensibility of your product formulation. 

Once your product is manufactured and approved for retail launch, Accelerator members onboard with our Distribution, paving the way for them to sell their product into our stores as well as dozens of other retailers in the DMV. Our Distribution team was developed out of a pain point all early stage CPG entrepreneurs encounter: Distributors want to see sales analytics to support bringing on a new product line and similarly, stores want to work with brands who have a partnership with a distributor. Our team removes this barrier to entry for young Accelerator brands, making the logistics of moving product that much easier!

Union Kitchen operates Stores in DC and Virginia. As the third arm of our ecosystem, our stores were developed to give our Accelerator members to access sales data that will pave the way for your company’s growth and expansion locally and regionally. By leveraging our store shelf placement, you will receive direct feedback from store teams and customers on product quality and experience. Accelerator members schedule demos to connect with consumers and learn what people want firsthand. The feedback is then used by Accelerator members to innovate their product offerings at a faster rate. 

By building out our Ecosystem of Kitchen, Distribution, and Stores, Union Kitchen has expertise that directly supports manufacturing, distributing, and selling CPG food product. Since 2012, we’ve worked with over 700 food businesses through our commercial Kitchen, Distribution, and Accelerator. We continue to develop our offerings to provide the best information and roadmap for Accelerator members to accelerate their growth. This means building out new programming, like our on demand course library, and creating new opportunities with industry partners.

In addition to the use of our ecosystem, Accelerator members have the opportunity for mentorship with industry leaders like Nestle USA and Ingredion. These mentorship opportunities provide unprecedented access to expertise in food manufacturing and product formulation otherwise challenging to obtain during early stages of growth. We’ve also fostered relationships with retailers like Giant Food and Whole Foods Market, and distributors like Rainforest and UNFI. Both our retail and distribution partners provide unique opportunity to connect with  buyers and onboard with new regional and national accounts and distributors.Beyond fostering relationships with industry experts,  Members have access to our supplier directory of over 1,000 industry contacts, including retailers, designers, packaging vendors, investors, and more. Not only will members have access to this list, but our team will work with you to identify key contacts that are best suited for your needs to save you time and effort. 

At Union Kitchen, we understand that access to capital can be challenging. Members can leverage our investor list of angel investors to raise funds and support their growth. In addition to our networks, resources, and expertise that we pour into our Accelerator, members will be eligible for investment opportunities throughout each phase of the Accelerator, including a month of full time membership fully covered, along with four additional months of full time membership covered at 50%. In Phase Two and Phase Three, qualify for $100,000 of investment with our Milestone Based Investment program. Lastly, we unveiled our Union Kitchen Investment fund, reserved for select Phase Four members to receive cash investment. 

At Union Kitchen, you will be immersed in a community of like-minded entrepreneurs who share similar goals. In partnership with our Accelerator team, we’ll guide you each step of the way to launch, grow, and scale your business. Ready to learn more? Schedule a call!