Grow Local Commissary Opens at the Nashville Farmers Market

Chef Derron Clark runs his own catering company, Kanela Rose, where items like his family biscuit recipe are a staple. Clark has built his business on the principles of family, love, and comfort. Having access to equipment for large-volume production — like 40-quart mixers and commercial convection ovens — wouldn’t simply make his business easier, it would allow him to further the foundation of his three business principles, while also providing a restaurant-quality experience. That idea has been out of reach until now.

Grown Local Commissary

Grow Local Commissary

When the Nashville Farmers Market launched Grow Local Kitchen inside of the market’s food hall more than a decade ago, the idea began as a workable space for chefs and aspiring restaurant operators to host demonstrations and workshops. The concept eventually evolved into a temporary test kitchen, where vendors leased the kitchen space with retail frontage, as the perfect launching pad to share their offerings to a public audience.

As always, growth can take on a new direction over time. With the success of Grow Local Kitchen, a new idea has flourished: The Grow Local Commissary, a brand new shared kitchen space, has opened at the Nashville Farmers Market. Now food businesses that are searching for a place to grow their brand, goods, and ideas can rent space in this industrial kitchen, giving them access to processing equipment that will take their manufacturing to a level they haven’t had connection to on their own.

“Building this shared kitchen space is another way that we can create a food hub,” says program manager Heather Hoch. “It’s a place where farmers can preserve the food they grow to supplement their own revenue, increase access to fruits and vegetables year-round, and cut down on food waste. It also allows food entrepreneurs a space to craft artisan products to bring tasty new options to the community.”

Hoch came on board with the market in 2020, overseeing its outdoor market sheds. Having a cooking and food writing background, she has spent years in the kitchen. Her passion for food only advanced when she began working firsthand with the farmers and the cultivators who sell their goods directly through the market, and her idea for a commissary-style workspace started coming to life. She was able to see the growth of cultivators, from start to finish, and had the insight to identify their success while also being able to recognize their greater needs. Primarily, she noticed that artisans lacked the workspace and equipment to provide large quantities of goods and that proper location and tools needed to be made available to them.

Grow Local Commissary

While Grow Local Kitchen was providing the space and the culinary tools to grow the careers of aspiring restaurant owners, what was missing was a space for farmers and chefs to grow their craft on a large scale. Think large meat slicers and double-stack convection ovens. A prep kitchen commissary was a concept that would not only benefit the artisans of the market but the Nashville food community as a whole.

Working with the Tennessee Department of Agriculture, Hoch was able to utilize its state grant funding to bring her vision of a large-scale, rentable food production space to life. One of the essential objectives of this dedicated space is to assist entrepreneurs in the planning and development of value-added business ideas. If cultivators have the space and the machinery to bulk freeze a crop of beans in a blast chiller or process multiple pounds of sausage in a commercial-grade meat grinder, they have an increased ability to enhance their supply chain.

In the same vein, if an aspiring baker is in the process of perfecting their pastry dough but needs some assistance in seeing it physically come to life in a more substantial scope, they can rent a space to utilize tools they can’t otherwise access. From a dough sheeter to a 40-quart stand mixer, the Grow Local Commissary gives individuals the ability to create on a larger scale with commercial appliances, allowing their vision of having a professional workspace and the capacity to bulk produce their craft to become a reality.

After a short online application process, users can lease the space several days a week, providing them with commercial-grade appliances and ample workspace to test out their culinary ideas before carving a path to their own restaurant location. They can iron out the wrinkles of their restaurant concept, hone their skills, and gain immediate feedback from an active daily lunch crowd. Grow Local Kitchen has been the initial space for countless restaurant hopefuls to get their cuisine into the bellies of Nashvillians. Spots like Otaku, Music City Crepes, and Succulent Vegan Tacos found their roots in Grow Local Kitchen.

The Grow Local Commissary is officially open, taking applicants, and ready for ideas to harvest. The process of using the state-of-the-art commissary space is relatively simple. Potential users can go to the Market House tab on the farmers market website and click “Grow Local Commissary.” Once the application is approved, users will have access to the scheduling system to reserve a space at any of the six available stations for their production needs. This month’s featured rotating concepts in Grow Local Kitchen include JR’s Mix, Slide Hustle, Breadwinner Lunch Shop, and the InkBird Cafe.

“It really is a dream come true to get to design a space like this with all the equipment I would want as a food producer,” Hoch says. “I can’t wait to see the creative ways farmers and artisans use the commissary.”

Jill Conklin is a freelance writer from Nashville, Tennessee. She began writing as an English major in college and has continued casually writing small pieces for over two decades while raising six kids.