Access-to-capital panelists, from left: Lindy Lee Gold, Sana Shaikh of NHE3, Sylina Jacobs of the SBA, and Anthony Booth-Carvalho of Grow America. Credit: Brandon Cortes
About 130 food entrepreneurs registered for a free, daylong workshop at Southern Connecticut State University (SCSU) on Tuesday, aimed at helping cooks, bakers, roasters and sauce-makers turn their products into businesses that last.
Throughout the day, attendees drifted in and out of workshops and between vendor tables, sampling food and trading business cards with owners, while others crowded the halls of SCSU’s School of Business to network.
“People get answers to key questions that are burning for them for their businesses,” CitySeed Executive Director Sarah Miller said of what success looked like for attendees. “A lot of times people find others that they can collaborate with, they can learn from — their peers at the same level of business.”
The inaugural CT Food Business Lab on Tuesday was organized by CitySeed, a New Haven nonprofit, in partnership with the Hispanic Federation, the Urban League of Southern Connecticut, and CT Food Launchpad. It offered morning workshops on branding, pricing, and access to capital, followed by an afternoon of free one-on-one sessions with advisers, with support available in English and Spanish.
Miller, who also represents Fair Haven’s Ward 14 on the Board of Alders, said the biggest obstacle facing food entrepreneurs in New Haven is access to a commercial kitchen. To sell their products beyond a certain volume, producers must cook in a licensed commercial kitchen. Miller said the city currently has just one such kitchen available to them — at the Dixwell Q House. That kitchen is run by CitySeed. CitySeed is now working to renovate and build out a new commercial kitchen facility at the organization’s headquarters in Fair Haven, she said.
“We know that really is the biggest barrier,” Miller said.
Tuesday’s event was funded through a $1 million grant from the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) to the Hispanic Federation, which supports small businesses across Connecticut. Yesmin Vega, the Hispanic Federation’s director of economic empowerment, credited U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal with helping secure the funding.
Vega said success could be as simple as an attendee leaving with a single resource they feel confident following up on. People often leave resource fairs overwhelmed, she said, feeling that help “is not for me.”
The access-to-capital panel featured Lindy Lee Gold, a senior development specialist; Sylina Jacobs, a marketing and loan specialist with the SBA; Anthony Booth-Carvalho, a lending manager at Grow America; and Sana Shaikh, a project director with NHE3.
Panelists covered how SBA-backed loans work, why messy business plans and financial records are the most common reason applications get denied, how to use free advising services, how personal credit scores shape lending decisions, and where to find grants. NHE3, which offers grants of $2,500 to $50,000 to businesses statewide, is accepting applications through Oct. 31.
Among the four food businesses showcasing their products on Tuesday was Ovelle Coffee, a Hartford company that imports Jamaica Blue Mountain coffee — which co-owner Ian Fay described as one of the world’s rarest — directly from a producer in Jamaica.
Fay said the idea took root when he got married in Jamaica’s Blue Mountains, where he stayed for about a week in a small village and toured a coffee farm.
“We just loved it,” Fay said. “And the pandemic hit, and I wanted to be my own boss.”
Fay started out in 2020 buying roasted coffee and reselling it. He later obtained a license from the Jamaica Agricultural Commodities Regulatory Authority to buy unroasted “green” beans directly from a producer, a practice known as direct trade. He now roasts the coffee himself at the Swift Factory in Hartford.
Fay co-owns Ovelle with his wife, Sasha Fay, who is CitySeed’s director of food business and helped organize Tuesday’s event. She said the company has grown into grocery stores, cafés, and other small businesses.
Asked about the hardest part of growing a business, Ian Fay said it’s weathering the highs and lows.
“The biggest thing, I think, is longevity,” he said. “Having the vision to not give up.”
Attendees listen during the access-to-capital panel at Tuesday’s CT Food Business Lab at Southern Connecticut State University.
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