Destrehan resident Rosario D’Amico never imagined he would be in the food business. Until 2008, D’Amico was a hotel manager in Baton Rouge. When the economy started to dip, he was laid off.
“I had a dinner party after I was laid off, and I served pasta with my homemade sauce,” D’Amico said. “Everyone at the party told me I needed to bottle it and sell it.”
D’Amico heard about Edible Enterprises, the new food incubator in Norco, and registered as a tenant. Now, he is ready to take his Sicily’s Finest Gourmet Foods Original New Orleans pasta sauce to the market.
“Edible Enterprises has made this a stress-free process for me,” he said. “They have helped me with everything and they are always offering suggestions and answering my questions.
“I have a really good feeling about this, and so far, I have gotten a really good response for my sauce.”
But not all the tenants at Edible Enterprises are just starting out.
Hahnville entrepreneur Stacey Greco has already seen her dreams become a reality.
“We have been here since Edible Enterprises opened and it has been a wonderful experience,” said Greco, who along with her husband, Francis, created a Creole Remoulade sauce under the name Omi’s. “Small companies could never afford to buy this equipment or bottle a product on their own. This is the only way you can really be successful.”
In fact, because of the help that Edible Enterprises offers, shoppers will soon be able to purchase Omi’s sauce at Rouse’s Supermarkets.
“We are also in several other groceries and you can purchase Omi’s at some seafood markets in Florida,” Greco said. “A country club in Lake Charles also spreads our sauce over their crab cakes, and they would have never heard about us if it wasn’t for Edible Enterprises.”
The food incubator only opened last June, but food companies are already flocking to its state-of-the art kitchens.
Experts are also on hand to offer advice, design product labels and give the companies the marketing expertise they need to get into groceries or markets.
The facility was spearheaded by the River Parishes Community Development Corporation and received $400,000 in grants to get started. St. Charles Parish also chipped in by putting up the $275,000 needed to buy the former Norco Co-op building on Third Street.
While it took two years for everything to fall into place, the building now boasts two commercial kitchens filled with all of the equipment needed to produce a food product and get it to the marketplace.
There are currently 19 tenants at Edible Enterprises, and 16 of them have already had success getting their products into groceries or seafood markets. And they have been able to do that for a relatively small price.
All of the tenants at Edible Enterprises have to pay a $200 application fee, but after that they pay just $20 an hour to use the kitchen.
“Compared to spending thousands of dollars to buy the equipment we have here, it’s pretty incredible that our tenants can take advantage of all that we offer for that price,” Marketing and production manager Gaye Sandoz said. “It’s also good for the tenants because they get to see if they really want to deal with the challenges that come with creating and marketing a product before investing so much of their money into it.”
While getting to rent out a state-of-the-art kitchen for $20 an hour is a pretty good deal, the fee includes so much more. Sandoz, who has created and marketed products for large companies like QVC and Cajun Injector, deals out marketing tips to every tenant at the facility.
“Without good marketing techniques, it can be very difficult to get into stores,” Sandoz said. “I have a lot of contacts throughout the area because of my work with QVC and Cajun Injector, and I can also teach the tenants ways to successfully market their product without spending a lot of money.”
Joe Ewell, the director of Edible Enterprises, was in the food distribution business, so he also teaches tenants the ins and outs of that demanding process.
“Our tenants are doing pretty well,” Sandoz said. “Like any business, it takes time to get started, but we have a lot of tenants who are aggressively marketing their products and having a lot of success doing so.”
One of Edible Enterprises’ new tenants has already had success marketing his barbecue sauce, but until now, could do so only in his restaurant.
Bull’s Corner has been a LaPlace icon since 1985, and owner Mike Norton has had thousands of requests over the years from customers asking to buy the restaurant’s famous barbecue sauce. That was something Norton couldn’t afford to do until Edible Enterprises came along.
“I have wanted to retail the sauce for a while, but it is such an expensive process because you have to obtain all the state approvals,” Norton said. “Now that Edible Enterprises is here, I can afford to do it right. I probably never would have done it if this facility didn’t open up.”
Edible Enterprises helps its tenants obtain approval from the Department of Health and Hospitals at no additional cost. Through a partnership with the LSU Food Science Department, all sauces and spices are checked to make sure they are ready to be loaded onto grocery store shelves.
“We have a safe, sanitized, approved facility for food production,” Sandoz said. “In fact, we are starting to get a lot of interest from farmers’ market’s directors who send their vendors here so that they can create and package their food products safely and in line with all state rules and regulations.”
That’s one reason why Norton believes residents will flock to Edible Enterprises.
“Everybody around here cooks,” he said. “This is going to be great.”
For more information, call Edible Enterprises at (985) 764-1504.
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