Trolley Stop bakers are using the Cannery, which is also open to the community.
Are you ready to get your cupcake truck on the road or to put up pickles from your over-productive garden? If so, the incubator kitchen at the Whitton Farms Cannery is a way to marry great ideas with a little practicality.
The recently-opened kitchen annex is operated by Jill and Keith Forrester and located two doors down from the couple’s Trolley Stop Market. It is a full-service commercial kitchen with two bakery depth ovens, two convection ovens, prep areas and a ten-eye stove.
“Right now we are using the kitchen in the mornings to bake the bread for the restaurant,” Keith Forrester says. “But we want to see people in the Cannery cooking around the clock.”
Forrester envisions the Cannery as a place where artisan start-ups can develop products and then prepare food regularly as the company grows. “We are looking for people who are ready to take their dream to the next level,” he says.
For instance, food truck operators might want to book the kitchen at the same time every week, while urban homesteaders might can jams and produce seasonally. Forrester plans to hire a fulltime director who will coordinate use of the Cannery and oversee activities such as home canning classes.
The Cannery also will facilitate the expansion of Trolley Stop’s baked goods and the development of value-added products from Whitton Farms. “Selling products like pickled okra from the farm has always been part of the plan,” Forrester says.
Two of the Cannery’s first products will be Forrester’s pecan pies and pickles made from the farm’s bumper crop of cucumbers. “We have an old-family pickle recipe from Dick Wilson that he is letting us use,” Jill Forrester says. “It’s spicy, hot and delicious."
