The Problem We’re Solving: The Hidden Barriers to Growing the Local Food Economy

Everyone wants to see a stronger local food economy. One where our grocery store shelves are lined with locally made products instead of imports from thousands of kilometres away. But to get there, we have to start at the beginning.

Those local products; the sauces, soups, baked goods, and ready-to-eat meals we love, all start somewhere. For many small food businesses, that journey begins at a farmers’ market, then expands into small retail, and eventually into grocery distribution. But there’s a missing piece of infrastructure that makes that growth harder than it needs to be: access to licensed kitchens.

Across Atlantic Canada, there’s no shortage of talent or ambition. Just a shortage of accessible, compliant kitchen space.

What is the missing infrastructure?

If you want to make and sell food, you need to produce it in a licensed commercial kitchen. That’s non-negotiable. But finding one? That’s where most entrepreneurs hit a wall.

Over the past few years at Food Web, we’ve spoken to dozens of food producers, caterers, and market vendors who’ve spent weeks making cold calls just to find a place to cook. Some eventually get lucky, finding a church or café willing to rent their kitchen during off-hours, but only after a long and frustrating search. Others simply give up because they can’t find a kitchen space at all.

And even when kitchens do exist, there are still major challenges that get in the way of connecting people to them:

• Lack of clarity for kitchen owners: Many spaces don’t fully understand what’s required around compliance, liability, and rental agreements, and don’t have the time to navigate those details.
• Limited visibility for renters: Entrepreneurs often have no easy way to see what kitchens actually offer: equipment, layout, or storage for food and tools.
• Scheduling headaches: Without simple systems for managing availability, double-bookings and back-and-forth coordination are common.

Why are so many licensed kitchens sitting empty?

Across Atlantic Canada, there are thousands of commercial kitchens sitting idle. Cafés that close mid-afternoon, community centres that host just a few events a week, churches, legions, and fire halls with fully equipped kitchens used only occasionally. These are licensed, and often taxpayer-funded spaces that could be powering our local food movement, helping entrepreneurs turn ideas into income and products into thriving small businesses.

Yet these kitchens remain out of reach for most food producers, not because they lack potential, but because there’s no simple way to find, book, or manage them. The infrastructure exists, it’s just invisible.

So while Atlantic Canada has the creativity and drive to grow its local food economy, the very systems that could support it remain tangled in logistics and uncertainty. That’s exactly what Food Web is here to untangle.

What does the regulator actually require?

Part of what keeps kitchen owners cautious is not knowing where their responsibility ends. The jurisdictional answer is narrower than most people assume. The Canadian Food Inspection Agency is explicit that you do not need a Safe Food for Canadians licence to trade food within your province or to prepare food that will be sold or consumed there; a federal licence enters only on import, export or crossing a provincial border. For a baker selling at a market down the road, the regulator that matters is the provincial or regional one.

Nova Scotia is the province that writes the shared-kitchen case down most clearly, and it is worth reading even if you are elsewhere. Its public market guidance requires that foods be prepared at a permitted commercial kitchen and stored there until they go to market, and that vendors who do not own or operate one submit a Permission to Use a Permitted Eating Establishment form. At the same time, its Food Safety Regulations hold that a permit "is not transferable to any other person or to any other food establishment". Both things are true at once: the host’s permit makes the room legal, and each operator still needs their own standing. That is a workable arrangement, not a barrier — it just has to be written down somewhere a kitchen owner can find it.

How Food Web bridges the gap

That’s where Food Web comes in. Born from lived experience and years of conversations with food entrepreneurs, we’re building a simple way to connect people who have kitchen space with those who need it.

Through foodweb.network, kitchen owners can list their spaces, share availability, and manage bookings - while food entrepreneurs can search, verify, and rent kitchens that fit their needs.

The idea started when our founder, Justin Andrews, could not find a kitchen for his own business — a challenge shared by countless others. Read about Justin’s journey to see how that experience turned into Food Web.

By unlocking underused kitchens and simplifying access, Food Web is building a bridge between potential and opportunity, turning empty kitchens into engines for local food growth.

Building the local food future

Every bottle of hot sauce, every loaf of bread, every locally made product begins with a kitchen. When we make it easier for small businesses to find the space they need, we make it easier for our communities to eat locally, spend locally, and build economic resilience. Across Atlantic Canada, the kitchens, the talent, and the drive already exist. What’s been missing is the connection between them. When we make it easier for kitchen owners to share their space, we’re building the foundation for a stronger, more resilient local food economy!

If you manage a licensed kitchen, you can help turn unused space into a new opportunity.

→ List your kitchen

If you’re a food entrepreneur ready to grow, this platform was built for you.

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If your next step is practical rather than philosophical, the kitchen rental guides hub covers it: the four ways to rent a commercial kitchen, how hourly booking works, and what makes a kitchen licensed.