MONEY

Foodlink is using URI money for a new community kitchen

Khristopher J Brooks
@AmericanGlow
Daviana Rivera, left, and Karen Coward, right, both of Rochester, package apple slices at Foodlink. The apples go to city recreation centers, charter schools and more.

Foodlink has dozens of workers who prepare thousands of meals per day in a kitchen the size of two middle school classrooms.

The floor, while clean, doesn't have enough drainage holes. The ovens, which once were shiny sterling silver, now show browning age spots. Rust stains the piping below. At least one of the 30-year-old ovens has to be fixed every day.

Foodlink Executive Director Julia Tedesco admits that Foodlink's community kitchen is no longer the ideal space for preparing food.

"We've completely outgrown that workspace and don't have the capacity to expand our meal and value-added processing programs," she said.

But soon that will all change.

Using $250,000 in Upstate Revitalization Initiative money, Foodlink plans to move its community kitchen from Joseph Avenue to its headquarters on Mt. Read Boulevard. Once moved, Foodlink will expand the kitchen into a 28,000-square-foot space that was warehouse space for Office Depot.

Foodlink's plan is a concrete example of URI money in action. It's one of 40 projects, totaling $30 million, to get approval in URI's first round of evaluations.

Leaders moving quickly to spread Rochester area's $500M

Foodlink's program and innovation director, Mitch Gruber, said he believes the organization was awarded URI money because its project contributes to two of the key areas that the region wants to strengthen — food production/agriculture and workforce development. Gruber added that the project gives local farmers another avenue to sell crops.

The kitchen's move will cost $4.5 million to $4.8 million, Tedesco said, but half that cost is for new equipment because the Joseph Avenue location is home to "decades-old, inefficient equipment that can't handle our production."

On Joseph Avenue, Foodlink workers slice apples that go to city recreation centers, charter schools and more. In that same location, Foodlink workers also prepare and ship out 3,500 hot meals.

At the expanded kitchen, workers can triple their production, Gruber said. The kitchen will have new ovens, kettles, a commercial freezer, braisers, a blast chiller and advanced apple slicers. The setup will allow slicers to handle 24 cases an hour instead of one.

"Kids are more likely to eat a sliced apple than a whole apple," Gruber said. "So we're saying no to schools who want our apples. We're bringing apples to schools that originally were coming from Washington state."

Aside from the $250,000 in URI money, Foodlink previously scored $750,000 from the council to help fund the move. Tedesco said her organization has raised $4.1 million, enough to start the move. Construction starts on May 1 and is expected to end in September, just before the school year begins.

Julia Tedesco, Foodlink executive director, gives a tour of the 28,000-square-foot area that will become the kitchen facility at Foodlink’s Mt. Read Blvd. facility in Rochester.

Foodlink and the other projects were promised URI money before anyone else because they applied for a different funding program, which disappeared as a result of Rochester winning the $500 million. When URI money became available, the Finger Lakes Regional Economic Development Council used some of it for these projects.

Vincent Esposito, the council's executive director, said council members wanted to fund these projects, in part, because they hope private companies will match dollars and pour more funding into employees and facilities across Rochester.

"This isn't the case for just these 40 projects, but for all future funding through URI as well," Esposito said.

It's not entirely accurate to say these projects have been awarded money, because council members are not just handing out checks up front.

Foodlink, and every other organization that has been promised money, has to foot the bill for a project first and keep precise accounting for every dime. Once finished, they send paperwork to Empire State Development and ESD will later send a check covering the costs.

Tedesco, at Foodlink, said the organization had to get creative about using URI money because it's basically a reimbursement, not a grant. She said Foodlink took out a $1 million bank loan to pay for construction and equipment. After URI money comes in, she said Foodlink will repay the loan, but will have to pay the interest accrued on the loan.

As complicated as that sounds, it appears more organizations want to be in Foodlink's Tedesco's shoes. There's a growing list of proposals that are seeking URI funding, said Mark Peterson, CEO of Greater Rochester Enterprise and one of the local leaders who sift through URI applications.

Peterson said the four-person evaluation team has just about sifted through the first 70-plus applications and made decisions. The plan going forward, Peterson said, is for the team to meet once a month and look at new proposals as they arrive.

KJBROOKS@gannett.com