Tricon Foodservice Consultants have just completed work on a community hub that is being hailed as a unique food concept, providing commercial kitchens, flexible workspace and an event programme to support food entrepreneurs.

Mission Kitchen is a 16,000 square foot shared workspace in New Covent Garden Market, Nine Elms. The facility has been developed with the purpose of giving food start-ups and those wishing to scale up their food business, a place to create, develop and refine their offering.

Members can choose from part-time or full-time membership to suit the needs of their food business be it concept or scale-up.

With shared kitchen workspace, private kitchen units, a fully equipped training and development kitchen, a studio kitchen for food photography and a training restaurant and bar for food and beverages to be tried and tested, Mission Kitchen aims to suit the needs of a wide range of food businesses. There’s even office space, meeting rooms and hot-desking available, as well as business support opportunities including mentorship, training courses and regular networking events for all members.

Working together with Architecture 00, the project founders and the local authority, Tricon Foodservice Consultants were brought in to oversee the fit-out of the facility. The project proved challenging for a number of reasons including utility issues such as electrical supply and drainage placement in the existing building.

Tricon Project Manager Gary Thompson said, “Mission Kitchen has been a different sort of project for us in every aspect. We saw our remit expand from fit-out and services to helping rework the design specifications and drawings but the result is an outstanding facility for members and the public to cook, work, learn and connect. It’s been hugely enjoyable to work on and a concept that we’re proud to have been a part of “.

The high spec kitchens are filled with professional-grade equipment, including brand new, top-of the range cooking, refrigeration and extraction equipment. Waste management and a pot-wash service have also been developed.

With plans already underway before the COVID-19 pandemic hit, the Mission Kitchen concept is now perhaps more prevalent than it was before. More than half of the founding members started their business during lockdown in 2020, and many others saw their custom disappear during COVID-19. Mission Kitchen will allow all types of food businesses to develop and re-build.

Charlie Gent, co-founder of Mission Kitchen, said, “These ideas need space and support to grow, and it’s really hard for small businesses to find either in London. Mission Kitchen aims to change this for good, reducing the barriers to entry and making building a food business cheaper, simpler and more fun.”

The project is being delivered in partnership with Covent Garden Market Authority and has been supported with grant funding from the Mayor of London through the GLA’s Good Growth Fund.