Food Craft Institute to open in Jack London Square

Making organic jams and jellies by hand and delivering them by bicycle does not sound like the most scalable business plan.

But Dafna Kory of Inna Jams, who started her business in 2010 without prior food service experience, increased her annual production from 8,500 to 30,000 jars within two years. After piecing together work space in rental kitchens, she's about to open her own kitchen and canning facility with the help of a Kickstarter campaign.

Kory will share some of her skills and experience as an instructor at the new Food Craft Institute, a school for artisan food companies opening in Oakland's Jack London Square in April.

A nonprofit affiliated with Oakland's Eat Real Festival, the annual street food festival, the institute will offer its first "master course" in jam, followed by courses in pickling, charcuterie, and coffee roasting and coffee bar management.

Apprenticeships

Each course, which costs $2,750 (scholarships are available), will take place over 12 Saturdays or Sundays. Participants will first receive training in business and food safety and science with teachers like author Harold McGee, and then have mini apprenticeships at established local businesses like Frog Hollow Farm and Blue Bottle Coffee.

"We're interested in re-establishing the food craft artisan as a premier profession in the United States," said Marcy Coburn, director of the institute, who hopes salami and pickle makers will be seen in the same light as chefs.

Food craft - the current term of choice now that "artisan" has been co-opted by fast-food chains - is basically the transformation of raw ingredients into shelf-stable products like tomato chutney that fetch a higher margin than their perishable raw counterparts, such as fresh tomatoes. The institute's goal is to ensure that the creators of these prepared foods, which tend to be made from sustainable ingredients, also maintain sustainable businesses.

"How do you get 20 or so artisan food businesses that are around in the Bay Area and make sure there are 15 left in 10 years' time?" said institute founder Anya Fernald, who points out that companies that use California-grown inputs - produce, meat or grains - have a particularly hard time making money.

Though customers perusing displays of organic, locally made jams and pickles might assume the company is making a fortune from their $12 jars, many food crafters have a hard time paying themselves a salary. Companies that start out with someone tinkering away in their home kitchen often don't know how to make the leap from a farmers' market stand to wider distribution. That's why about 25 percent of each master course will be devoted to business planning.

Learning from the best

"This is not only business boot camp but boot camp with the Bay Area's best food artisans. It's a way to learn directly from them how they are running their businesses," said Susie Wyshak, former "food forager" for Foodzie and Buyer's Best Friend, who will teach some of the courses and is the author of the upcoming book, "Good Food, Great Business."

Wyshak said one pitfall many producers make is to set prices too low at the beginning because they often start out selling directly and don't plan ahead for when they will sell retail and make a smaller margin. Also, they often don't know how to plan for costs like employees, marketing, storage and shipping.

A new product line

Though already the owner of an established business, Kendra Kolling of Nana Mae's Organics plans to enroll in the institute for help launching a new product line. She and her husband, Paul, farm 350 acres in Sonoma County to produce 30,000 cases a year of organic apple juice and apple sauce. But competition from large-scale canning companies made them want to diversify to Farmer's Wife, a gourmet line of fermented soda, hard cider and preserves made with Nana Mae's fruit.

"We're not making a killing at this, which is why I'm trying to be smarter," said Kolling. "A customer who is paying $19 to $30 a pound for cheese doesn't really think twice about picking up a little jar of preserves to go with it, whereas the mom in the applesauce aisle is a different consumer," she said.

Another instructor at the Food Craft Institute will be Minh Tsai, founder of Oakland's Hodo Soy Beanery. He started out selling his fresh, organic, handmade tofu at farmers' markets in 2004 and by 2009 had opened his own 12,000-square-foot production facility. But Tsai thinks opportunities have changed - for example, the proliferation of farmers' markets means that sales at each market are lower.

'Amazing food'

"Every single artisan believes that they're making amazing food," said Tsai. "There's no doubt about that. The question is more if they're making a food that can gain entry into this market."

As for Kory, she is excited to move into her new kitchen so she can continue to grow. She plans to rent her kitchen out to other small business owners, maybe like those who get their start at the institute. One of the tips she has for them is simple but often overlooked.

"This really sucks," she said. "But you have to sit down and create your cash-flow chart so that you can see how much money you have and so that you can see if there's a point in time, in six months or nine months, where you will run out of money."

Tara Duggan is a freelance writer. tara@taraduggan.com

This article appeared on page D - 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle