The Van Buren County UT Extension Office is installing a new community kitchen to be used by residents for mass production.
Van Buren County UT Extension Agent Chris Binkley said the idea to create a community kitchen came after the extension office received several calls from people asking if there was a kitchen that people could use to mass-produce products and add value to their produce. Binkley said the office realized Van Buren County did not have one.
“There is none anywhere around,” Binkley said. “So we worked with the city of Spencer using the Three Star Grant from the state of Tennessee to add this kitchen in to try and help generate more economic impact in our city and in our county.”
Binkley said the $25,000 kitchen will have up-to-date appliances including a commercial-grade cooler and freezer, a commercial convection oven, a dishwasher, and a two-compartment sink. Binkley said the kitchen is currently being installed and expects the kitchen to be available for rent sometime in May.
“We have had somebody come in and of course you know we had to add some electrical outlets and things like that to run the equipment,” Binkley said. “So we have had that done. We got to move some of the plumbing within the building to get the dishwasher and stuff installed. We are hoping that is going to take place next week and then if we get it all installed next week then we are gonna do some trial runs to make sure everything works, and we are hoping by at least the first of May that we can start seeing if we can have people rent it out.”
Binkley said he hopes the kitchen will be beneficial to many small businesses in the area.
“It would cut down on travel,” Binkley said. “You know we have some people that are traveling to use community kitchens in Chattanooga and those people could stay at home and do it so that is kind of our goal you know, is to try and make the products stay local.”
Binkley said he has not come up on the prices to rent the kitchen. Binkley said the community kitchen will be a major upgrade compared to the demonstration kitchen that the extension office previously had.
