From small kitchens to big dreams
Fork Food Lab is empowering Maine’s culinary talent
Glimpse of the Maine Foodscapes dinner by Fork member Hungry Gains. PHOTO COURTESY STEPHEN DAVIS PHILLIPS
By Amy Paradysz
Young Francis, the “Mr. BBQ” of Oga Suya, Maine’s only Nigerian BBQ. Photo: Amy Paradysz
When Young Francis first came to Maine in 2019, he couldn’t find any suya, or barbecue, he loved back home in Nigeria. By 2022, he’d met hundreds of Nigerians here in Maine and, seeing a niche market, started a catering business called Oga Suya, which loosely translates as “Mr. BBQ.”
As many months as the weather allows, Mr. BBQ can be found at The Portland Zoo beer garden, serving Nigerian-style fried dough and grilling suya favorites like red snapper with plantains, shrimp skewers and chicken wings. Add an Afro beat DJ to the mix—which happens once a month—and it’s a party. “This brings a lot of Africans together, which is one of the reasons I started this business,” Francis says. “We can enjoy ourselves and be happy together. And I couldn’t have done this without Fork Food Lab.”
Since 2016, more than 200 food entrepreneurs, including Oga Suya, have used the shared kitchens at Fork Food Lab—Maine’s only nonprofit food business incubator and shared manufacturing and processing facility.
“Seeing all the businesses gives you a push of motivation,” he says. “Everybody works together and is super-welcoming.”
Today, the more than 80 Fork members come from 16 countries and six continents. Nearly one-quarter of members have a food truck, and one-third of members make consumer packaged goods—everything from hot sauce to dog treats. Just over half of Fork member companies are owned by women, and about half of members started their businesses during the pandemic out of Fork’s original location on Parris Street in Portland.
“They were able to grow their business there,” says Deputy Executive Director Corinne Tompkins. “But eventually, growth was stunted because we were maxed out.”
That’s definitely not the case any longer.
In the fall of 2023, Fork moved to Darling Avenue in South Portland. At 30,000 square feet, the new facility has nearly six times as much space—sufficient for more than 100 food businesses.
There’s a commercial kitchen, a dedicated bakery, libraries of small appliances and dishes, four walk-in coolers, dedicated storage and a bottling and packaging room.
A machine called a “horizontal flow wrapper” makes packaging foods more efficient. Empanada Club owner Adrian Espinoza Garcia and Sunnyfield Baking Co. owner Liz Mott are two of the entrepreneurs who have been hand-sealing their packages but now will be able to just lay them on the machine and let it do the rest.
Other entrepreneurs are excited about the 10-gallon steam jacketed kettle that makes it possible to make large quantities of soup without scorching and the 30-gallon tilt skillet where they can prepare fried rice for 200 people in a single pan.
Fork member Alicia O’Riordan of Hungry Gains catered a 70-person gala for nonprofit Maine Foodscapes in October 2024. Photo courtesy of Ali Mediate
“It’s a cook’s dream,” says Alicia O’Riordon, who started a farm-fresh meal prep service called The Hungry Gains in November 2023. “And, although everybody has their own business, it feels like a big family.”
O’Riordon quickly found a customer base with gym members and athletes, including the Maine Celtics during last winter’s season. Fork Food Lab made it economically feasible for her to grow her business while her weekly order count was rising, step back when she had a baby last spring, and now to begin building back up again.
“It’s great for cooks who don’t want to start a restaurant,” says Chenda Chamreoun, who runs a catering company called Cambodia’s Best. “Fork Food Lab has given me a lot of tools and support to grow my business.”
When Fork invited members to sell their food at Portland Green drinks October 2024 social in the food lab’s still unfinished event space, Chamreoun served beef skewers, lo mein and deep-fried taro wontons. Those sorts of invites are part of Fork’s mission to support a just, diverse, and sustainable food economy in Maine.
“We want to support food entrepreneurs in their quest to produce high quality and sustainable products using locally sourced ingredients,” Tompkins said. “We’re connecting Maine food producers and food manufacturers. Of course, one of the biggest challenges with food businesses using more local food is that it can be more expensive. So, we’re trying to bring that cost down with collective buying power.”
Thanks to a grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Fork’s Community Resource Coordinator can realize the benefits of cooperative buying—purchasing, let’s say, 1,000 pounds of locally grown onions and reallocating them to members who need onions.
A pulled pork sandwich by Red Magnolia, a new Memphis barbecue business started by Brooks Roberts. Photo: Amy Paradysz
This buying power also helps Fork’s nonprofit members like Meals on Wheels, Maine Farm to Sea, and Maine Foodscapes. Nonprofit Maine Organic Farmers and Gardens Association (MOFGA) hosts canning workshops. Preble Street’s Food Security Hub, which abuts the new Fork facility, drops off ingredients that Fork member Maine Immigrants’ Rights Coalition (MIRC), another nonprofit, transforms into fresh meals for asylum seekers living in motels.
“There’s never a dull moment around here,” Tompkins says. “This is a 24/7/365 facility.”
What Fork staff refer to as phase 1 will be complete this winter when ¾ acre of rooftop solar panels are installed to power the facility, including the fully electric kitchens.
Phase 2, which is partially constructed while Fork continues its $3.5 million capital campaign, will include a produce processing wing, a meat manufacturing facility, a store where the public can shop products made in Fork kitchens, a spacious event hall and a small dining room for pop-up events.
The produce processing facility, Tompkins says, will be a game changer for Maine farms—and for reducing food waste.
Fork Food Lab’s new facility in the former Wex headquarters in South Portland. Photo: Amy Paradysz
“We’re in a partnership with 17 other collaborators, nonprofit organizations and farm partners, creating an opportunity for there to be less waste in the Maine food system by offering co-manufacturing and co-packing options for small farmers,” she says. “For example, Hannaford always wants to buy your big, beautiful apples. But if you have apples that are too big or too small or kind of ugly or something like that, you might donate or compost them. When this facility is up and running, you will be able to bring that surplus to Fork Food Lab and it will be washed, prepped and turned into applesauce, apple cider, dehydrated slices, whatever.”
Eventually, there will be a phase 3 in an adjoining 12,000-square-foot building. Potential uses for this space are still being considered. “Part of the vulnerability in our business model is we don’t know who’s going to call us because they want to open a food business five years from now,” Tompkins says.
To implement flexibility at every turn, nearly everything at Fork is on wheels—because they don’t know what the future will bring and want to be able to meet whatever comes.
“What I do know, “Tompkins says, “is that we’re dissolving the boundaries that prevent people from entering food entrepreneurship and then being able to continue to grow and scale their business. And Fork will play a critical role in the stimulation of Maine’s farming economy.
The outdoor sauna at Wolf Cove Inn in Poland features a stunning wall of windows overlooking Tripp Lake.