Cookworking: coworking for cooks

The world coworking continues to grow and diversify. This time, we talk about cookworking, the coworking for cooks.

Starting a business in the food industry is a task reserved for titans. Anyone who has tried it knows that it is not cheap. Utensils, space, raw materials and licensing fees have shattered many a chef's dreams of becoming a chef. However, someone in the United States turned on the light bulb a few years ago and set up a gastronomic coworking. It is a kind of kitchen-incubator to facilitate access to the professional sector for its cookworkers, providing them with utensils, resources and connections with suppliers and customers. This new specialization of the coworking sector for foodies has led, in just five years, to the creation of 130 shared kitchens in the United States.

Two different models of collaborative gastronomic economy are being implemented in the United States. On the one hand, there is the Forage Kitchen in San Francisco; a series of spaces that offer their users commercial kitchens, offices, commercial spaces, workshops, courses, products and even (in this particular case) a brewery.

On the other hand, there are the platforms such as the FoodLab in Detroit, which connect new entrepreneurs entrepreneurs culinary entrepreneurs with owners of underutilized kitchens. In this case, it is the owners themselves who mentor the entrepreneurial chefs. The kitchen renter learns and the landlord makes money.

In the Spanish case, cookworking or coworking for cooks is still in its infancy, as there are only a few centers of this type in Barcelona and recently in Madrid. From The Shed Coworking we wanted to highlight some of them:

"Contact Kitchen

It is the most recent cookworking and the only one of its kind in the capital. It has been conceived by its founders as a meeting point for people dedicated to the gastronomic sector. It has 400 square meters of facilities, a fully equipped professional kitchen, twenty offices and a gastronomic products store where they sell everything from pots and pans to recipe books. The dream of every chef.

The purpose of this coworking for cooks is to seek synergies among its cookworkers through different activities. Therefore, they offer a large number of courses and workshops. They even organize events, private parties, meetings or dinners where you can take the cook with you, be the cook yourself or just go for dinner. A totally versatile place.

" La Patent

It is one of the longest-running collaborative cooking spaces in Barcelona. For four years they have offered market cuisine workshops, international cuisine, tastings, cooking workshops and team buildings. With more of a school vocation than a coworking space, they offer their space to any cooking lover who needs it.

"Sharing Kitchen

It is similar to the American FoodLab. It is a platform that connects people who have commercial kitchens with culinary professionals, in the purest style of the collaborative economy. Its clients include chefs, professional pastry chefs, amateurs looking for mentors or entrepreneurs taking their first steps in gastronomy. This initiative allows them to forget about fixed management costs and licenses. It is a gastro-space rental modality.

" L'Obrador

Another cookworking or coworking center for cooks in Barcelona is in full development. It is a project of Caravan Made and is focused on entrepreneurs and food artisans. A new project that joins the Spanish panorama of collaborative cooking.

AUTHOR: MÓNICA COCA

Freelance writer and screenwriter looking for good stories to tell. She can be found in all formats: articles, podcasts, novels and whatever comes up.

On the cover: image from the movie Soul Kitchen