As part of the ACT Now Coalition package of grant awards totaling $62.8 million for eight economic development projects in southern West Virginia, there will be a shared commercial kitchen developed in downtown Charleston. Food and beverage manufacturers in the region will benefit greatly from access to this new food enterprise incubator with co-packing capabilities and equipment!

The future Capitol Kitchen, Charleston’s Food Enterprise Incubator will include a shared kitchen rental space with wraparound entrepreneurial services, co-packing food production and aggregation, cold storage, and docking space to meet growing needs for access to healthy local foods and to boost small business entrepreneurial food endeavors and resiliency in the region. The Food & Beverage Business Accelerator will also be able to process and distribute agribusiness produced from repurposed former mine lands, supported by the WVU Sustainable Mine Lands component project. This facility will be developed with partners including the Charleston Capital Market, the Charleston Food & Farm Collaborative, and other food entrepreneurs who are backed by Advantage Valley through the GROW Now component project.  

Stay tuned for more details as they become available about this exciting project!