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market-farming - Re: [Market-farming] certified kitchen

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  • From: Joan Vibert <joan AT windwalker-farm.com>
  • To: <market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Market-farming] certified kitchen
  • Date: Wed, 11 Dec 2002 17:14:46 -0600

Beth -

We put in the kitchen on a shoestring. Our basement is actually a cellar so
we had to put in wall board on the walls and ceiling and then I painted it
with a high gloss enamel so it could be washed. The floor is just painted
with concrete paint. We found a triple stainless steel sink at a used
restaurant equipment place, I think it cost about $300. We had our old
stove that I replaced a couple of years ago but you could easily find a used
stove. My husband made a work table from a formica counter he took out of
someone's kitchen - we did put stainless steel legs on it however. The main
thing our health department wants to see is the ability to clean all of this
equipment - no cracks or places for dirt (bacteria) to accumulate. We
actually put an old non-functioning refrigerator in there for dry storage
(mouse-proof is a biggie around here). There's some wire shelving and a
stainless drying rack over the sinks. The whole kitchen is only about 12' x
15'. A lot of the storage stuff is in totes that I can move out of the way
but most of the actual ingredients are stored in my real kitchen.

I want to say we spent around $2,000 to $2,500 on the whole thing but that
seems like too much. The big expenses were the sink, the table legs, and
four flourescent light fixtures with covers. I know the floor paint was
expensive, also. And we had to install a lift pump to get the grey water
out of the sink into the plumbing system - so maybe that's a pretty good
figure.

I have run the numbers yet on this year's sales and am anxious to see how it
all comes out but I'm very confident that the kitchen has already paid for
itself. Especially this year when we had such drought and I lost so many
veggies - I just stayed in the kitchen and cooked. Lots of the veggies came
from fellow growers at the end of market days - I'd take their cracked
tomatoes, and peppers, etc. It helped to fill out the vacancies I had in my
gardens.

I'm making a wonderful arugula walnut pesto right now that is coming out of
the garden and I just freeze them until its time to sell. They hold very
well that way.

If you have any other questions please ask -

Joan
Windwalker Farm
Ottawa, Kansas





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