Nonprofit Foodpreneur Lab breaks barriers for Black food entrepreneurs
February is Black History Month, and to help us celebrate Black achievement is the founder of Foodpreneur Lab, Janice Bartley.
Foodpreneur Lab is the only Canadian Black-woman founded and led non-profit with a national mandate to support underserved communities and address systemic barriers in the food ecosystem.
“This particular project through the Black entrepreneurship fund focuses on Black food entrepreneurs who are looking to launch and scale food products to the market,” Bartley said in an interview on Morning Live Thursday.
Bartley said access has been a major problem for underserved communities. Foodpreneur Lab is aiming to solve that issue through their two programs called Advisor-Led Startup and Scale Up Support.
These two pathways help open the doors to networks, resources, industry and financial knowledge that have been previously hidden from historically underrepresented communities.
According to their website, the startup path is for pre-revenue foodpreneurs who have an idea they want to turn into a prototype. While the scale up path is for foodpreneurs who are already selling products in the market and are ready for commercialization or product diversification.
The applications for cohort two are open until Feb. 28 at 11:59 p.m., and the program begins on April 4.
