The Syracuse Community Test Kitchen (COMTEK) is a joint collaboration with Nelson farms and Whitman School of Management. The Community Test Kitchen located within the SSIC will support new and existing food entrepreneurs with training and guidance to commercialize home recipes. New Entrepreneurs will receive training in the areas of commercialization; from the development process of formulating scratch recipes into full scale-up production formulas, marketing, sales, and distribution. Existing Small Business Food Entrepreneurs in need of growing their business to the next level of profitability will be offered through a variety of business training programs and culinary product improvement Sessions.

The goal of the Community Test Kitchen is to help entrepreneurs create new products that are profitable. Participants will be trained in the areas of business planning, market research, recipe development, sensory analysis, and FDA requirements while working in the Test Kitchen. Successful participants will be referred to Nelson Farms for Scale-Up production of a potentially profitable product. Nelson Farms is Morrisville State College’s small scale food processing center located 8 miles from the college in Nelson NY. It serves small business owners and entrepreneurs in producing, packaging, and marketing products.