by Deb Hall » Fri Mar 14, 2008 11:22 pm
Amy,
Yes, we do. The name is FB-3 and it's located downtown on Market in the location that used to be Mayan Gypsy. Several local brands are processed there. I've found the folks there to be extremely accomodating. Here's more info:
Louisville Magazine, May 2007
The local business-incubation scene took a tasteful turn last year when a partnership called FB3 Development opened a food-industry incubator at the former site of the Mayan Gypsy restaurant, 624 E. Market St. Modeled after the downtown technology incubator bCatalyst, on Washington Street, FB3 has a stable of “eggs” that include:
• Bourbon Barrel Foods, which makes a bourbon-infused smoked sea salt and a sorghum-sweetened Worcestershire sauce aged in used bourbon barrels;
• Bluegrass Soy Sauce Co.;
• Olive Branch Cuisine, which makes a preservative-free product called Basilicata Gourmet Italian Salad Dressing & Sauce;
• Rudy Green Ventures, an upscale doggy cuisine maker whose motto is “Let’s face it — your dog wants to eat what you eat.” The start-up’s frozen-dinners line includes such human staples as pork loin with rotini pasta, potatoes and celery; prime beef with brown rice, peas and carrots; and Veggie Might, a mixture of lentils, barley, spinach, potatoes, corn, peas and carrots (for vegetarian owners who want to turn their dogs into vegetarians).
The Market Street incubator, owned and operated by partners Sandy Nixon, 38, and Hilary Sepe, 25, not only offers its clients/tenants consulting services on production techniques, marketing and distribution; it also provides a research lab and test kitchen, processing and storage equipment, and labeling and packaging facilities. Nixon, a Louisville native, holds a bachelor’s degree from Vanderbilt in bio-medical engineering and chemistry and an M.B.A. from the University of Louisville. Sepe’s bachelor’s degree is in animal science from the University of Connecticut and her master’s is in food science from the University of Kentucky.
“We try to aim for three months from the time we sign you to the time the product is ready to go,” says Nixon. FB3 itself has a business that’s part of the incubator — last fall Nixon and Sepe purchased a small company, founded by a Cuban immigrant, called Havana Beverages, which features cola with lime and mojito flavors (regular and diet) and is just now appearing on store shelves.
“I liked what the product stood for,” says Nixon, “all-natural flavors and sweetened with pure cane sugar. It tasted like international Coke (only the U.S. substitutes corn syrup for cane sugar) with lime.”
The partners are also developing a company called Eclipse Foods, one of whose experimental offerings will be a cranberry hazelnut glaze being developed by Sepe. But not just yet, she says.
“We’re trying to focus on, one, Havana Beverages, and, two, on the entrepreneurs that we have right now,” she says. “Everybody’s kind of at a tender point and we want to be sure that we can devote the resources and the time and energy that they need so they can be as successful as possible.”
Start-ups are us: FB3 partners Nixon (right) and Sepe