Opening of new incubator gives Riverhead food entrepreneur the chance to fulfill a life dream

Riverhead resident Janet Jensen is a food entrepreneur who almost wasn’t.

Jensen, a mother of three grown children, had been making wholesome food bars in her kitchen for years. Dubbed “N.O.A.” because they contain nuts, oats, and agave, Jensen originally baked the treat to satisfy her own nutritional needs. Those needs involved a food that wouldn’t spike her blood sugar, but that also tasted delicious. Her N.O.A. bars were soon in high demand.

Friends and family raved about her creations, so she explored marketing the bars as a business venture, but Jensen was unable to take it to the next level. She was overwhelmed by the fine print. New York and Suffolk County food laws and regulations are stringent and make it really difficult for small businesses to get started, Jensen said.

Enter the Agriculture Consumer Science Center at the Stony Brook University Calverton Business Incubator, and Jensen is seeing her dream become a reality.

“I was looking for a way to make my product in a legal and safe environment,” Jensen said Tuesday after officials cut the ribbon on the 8,300-square-foot annex to the business incubator. The incubator will help her with the nutritional labeling process and in understanding and implementing the proper legal procedures required for food sales within the state of New York.

“Knowledge is power, and in this case, money too,” remarked Jensen.

The center will offer training, support and assistance to Jensen’s and other local food businesses.

The Agriculture Consumer Science Center offers a shared-use, small-scale food processing center. Food producers can apply for a spot at the Calverton location if they are a licensed business in New York, have food handling permits in place, and are insured, according to Jensen. If approved, these businesses then have access to a state-of-the-art facility that includes classrooms, walk-in and flash freezers, prep space, food storage options, and multiple ovens. They even offer a dedicated, certified, gluten-free space.

Jensen is looking forward to working with others within the food community. “It’s such a nice opportunity,” she said, “I think there’s a real community that we feel towards one another.” There is the opportunity to learn from others as well as find support within the center’s walls.

According to Monique Gablenz, director of the SBU Incubator at Calverton, there are about a dozen companies that have applied to the center to date, with six additional applications arriving yesterday alone.

“While we have a plan as to how the space will function, what I think is most exciting is that we have yet to imagine all the ways that it will be used and the opportunities it will present,” Gablenz said.

The new ag consumer science center, located on Route 25 in Calverton, will allow local entrepreneurs the opportunity to collaborate with Stony Brook University, Brookhaven National Laboratory and the New York Small Business Development Center.

Jensen is excited about the venture. She plans to start slowly and learn the right way, “I’m sure I’ll find my niche and the incubator is going to help me do that.”

Construction on the facility took about a year to complete and was funded with $3.5 million secured by State Sen. Ken LaValle. The incubator sits on 50 acres of land at the former Grumman site, which the town gave to the state for its construction. The original incubator facility was built in 2004.

Stony Brook University president Dr. Samuel Stanley was on hand to do the honors of snipping a big red ribbon with oversized scissors, joined by LaValle, Gablenz, County Legislator Ed Romaine, Riverhead Supervisor Sean Walter and the Riverhead Town Board and L.I. Farm Bureau executive director Joe Gergela.

RiverheadLOCAL photos by Denise Civiletti
Click thumbnails to enlarge images
{gallery}cssgallery/2012_1016_incubator{/gallery}

{loadposition tab1}