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Providence — Warren-based food business incubator Hope & Main has opened the doors of its new Downtown Makers Marketplace at 100 Westminster Street.
This combined eatery and grocery store offers food and beverages from the Hope & Main makers and is open Monday through Friday from 7am to 6pm.
“This is where we can be conscious consumers,” Lisa Raiola, Founder and President of Hope & Main, told the many onlookers at the grand opening on January 18. rice field. “We can make deliberate choices to support small local businesses, boost job creation, and build a stronger, more equitable food system for Rhode Island,” she said.
“Food has an amplifying effect. Every dollar spent in the local food economy is worth $1.30 in the economy as a whole … For every 10,000 square feet of grocery space we create to sell local food, It will create 24 jobs.”
Hope & Main launched the market with the help of Papitto Opportunity Connection and Paolino Properties.
The store’s grocery section has over 100 items, all made by Hope & Main manufacturers, 40% of whom are people of color and 60% are women. For Raiola, the market is as much about local food as it is about fairness.
“It can take years to hit the[grocery store]shelf. We got rid of it,” Raiola says. “People who started a business a few months ago are already getting the product out of the way.”
Hope & Main has over 200 active maker members and has launched over 450 companies since its founding in 2014.
meet your maker
Prior to the official store opening, Raiola stood in front of a new refrigerator lined with Hope & Main products and explained each one with tangible pride.
She points to a jar of Chi Kitchen kimchi made by food entrepreneur Minnie Luong, who was born on a rice farm in Vietnam and immigrated to the United States as a child. And then there’s Perfect Empanadas, a company started by Pablo Mastandrea, who left her company career to start a business in 2018.
Raiola is particularly fond of Nourish Our Neighbors ready-to-eat meals prepared in the refrigerated section. When a customer purchases one of these her $20 single servings, another meal is automatically donated to a neighbor in need at distribution points statewide. Meals are prepared by Hope & Main makers who make 200-300 meals and pay $10 per meal.
The program, which has distributed 50,000 meals since March 2020, is the only all-local food provided by Rhode Island’s emergency food aid program, Raiola said.
Over the next few months, Hope & Main’s Downtown Makers Marketplace will continue to evolve to meet the needs of the Providence community, hosting guest chefs, maker tastings and pop-ups.
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