
Startup Spotlight: Ashley Colpaart of The Food Corridor
Ashley Colpaart (Ph.D. Food Science & Food Safety, 2017) is one of the best kinds of entrepreneurs to invest in: a bonafide expert. Experts have the education, experience, and industry contacts to navigate a typically congested marketplace. They also have a deep understanding of the problem, or problems, facing their industry. And they have the passion to persevere because they believe so deeply in the cause. I can confidently say that Ashley has all these attributes and more.
Ashley started The Food Corridor in 2015 while pursuing her Ph.D. in Food Science and Food Safety at Colorado State Univerity. In 2017, The Food Corridor closed a Seed round raising $600k from investors. The company is making incredible progress and they currently support over 80 kitchens and thousands of food entrepreneurs.
BZ: What is The Food Corridor?
AC: The Food Corridor is enabling efficiency, growth, and innovation in local food through cloud-based technologies.
BZ: What sparked the concept?
AC: I took Uber for the first time after supporting USDA in allocating grant funds to food system projects. It dawned on me that few sharing economy models had been applied to the food production system, so I set off to develop the first Airbnb for commercial kitchen spaces.
BZ: What does your business do that is better than anyone else?
AC: The Food Corridor is a tech-enabled platform that enables shared kitchens across the country to operate more efficiently and grow more food businesses. Without owning any physical space, The Food Corridor is powering 80+ shared kitchen facilities across the country and in Canada. Our network of co-cooking spaces is, in turn, providing 4000+ chefs, caterers, food trucks, craft food producers, and delivery-only concepts space to legally produce food and grow their dream business.
BZ: Why is now the right time for your business?
AC: This may ruffle some people’s feathers, but I’m of the belief that the home kitchen is not equipped for growing a food business, specifically when it comes to scalability and consistency. That said, the cottage industry plays an important role for hobbyists looking to share their passions selling small quantities to their neighbors, as well as for budding food entrepreneurs testing recipes and accessing direct feedback from consumers.
The commercialized kitchen is very different than a domestic kitchen which today functions as a place for dining, entertaining, laundry, pet care, and more. In contrast, the commercial kitchen, which is subject to safety standards pertaining to food and energy usage, are important public health successes we should all laud.
Like the rise in co-working spaces, I predict a rise in co-cooking or community commercial kitchen spaces. A monthly membership fee to access a commercial kitchen that covers cleaning, water, waste, electricity and equipment repairs definitely takes a lot of stress out of the mix for food producers. With the rise in automation and the total cost of production of professionally cooked and delivered food reaching parity, the domestic kitchen may be becoming obsolete. Perhaps co-cooking or shared use kitchens are the meeting places, gyms, and yoga studios of the future.
BZ: What nuance about your business is most difficult to convey?
AC: We bill ourselves as a “marketplace” but are currently a SaaS product with a marketplace arm. We often use the analogy “Airbnb for commercial kitchens” to quickly convey our concept but we are more like MindBody. We are also currently owning the niche of shared use kitchens (co-cooking spaces for food entrepreneurs) which is a new concept that takes a bit of explaining.
BZ: What part of running a startup has been harder than you imagined?
AC: There is no play-book. I can read a16z, Brad Feld, Zero to One, the Hard thing about Hard things, Simon Silek and listen to “How I Built This” all day long, but their story is not mine, their industry is not the same, and the world has changed. Trusting in yourself, trusting in your big bet, trusting in your team, and then executing is all you can do, and have to do, to move forward. It is also really difficult to manage constrained resources and decide when is the right time to pour more resources in and when is the right time to extend the runway and conserve cash.
BZ: What part of running a startup has been easier than you imagined?
AC: Attracting people to our community and company. I am in awe daily of the people power that surrounds The Food Corridor. Brilliant, talented, passionate people have chosen our company, our dream, our vision to get behind and are willing to contribute their time, treasure, and talent to support our success. It is unbelievably powerful, humbling, and motivating. Right now, my team is blowing my mind.
BZ: What is your superpower?
AC: Shapeshifting. Human jukebox. Movie quotes.
BZ: How do you define success for the next 12–18 months for your business?
AC: Sustained interest and market signals indicating that we are on trend and executing in the right direction. Killer testimonials and referrals from clients. Continued growth in our community. Hitting our sales targets.
BZ: What lesson(s) do you take from this experience that you would convey to other founders/CEOs?
AC: Don’t let perfection be the enemy of the good.
Go. Do. Risk.
You will never know what you are capable of until you take the step. No one has all the answers or all the information, so don’t let it paralyze you. All you can do is move, adjust, move, adjust, and move more. Follow your intuition but also be willing to listen to the people and signals around you so you aren’t blindfolding yourself from reality. Dream big and bring others on that dream with you.
BZ: What piece of advice has been the most valuable to you for this experience?
AC: Other people will only believe if you believe.
BZ: What do you currently need help with?
AC: Growing and scaling is hard mostly because of the systems and processes that need to be in place to make it flow easily and to ensure you are doing things legally and correctly. I wish there was a simple solution or workbook to implement onboarding, hiring, benefits, and employee satisfaction/reviews. Also, how to decide when is the right time to pour more resources in (raise money) and when is the right time to extend runway and conserve cash (extend runway).
BZ: How will you pay it forward once you’ve accomplished your goals as a Founder?
AC: I can’t wait. I already enjoy supporting first-time founders in navigating the world of starting a company. I hope to do angel investing and be able to support innovative ideas, founders, and companies that are going to change the world.
Connect with Ashley here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ashleycolpaart/
Learn more about The Food Corridor here: http://www.thefoodcorridor.com/
