Highlight: Baltimore Food Enterprise Center Opens!

A November 14, celebration attended by EDA Deputy Assistant Secretary for Regional Affairs Dennis Alvord, Maryland Department of Housing and Community Development Secretary Kenneth Holt and Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh, heralded the grand opening of the Baltimore Food Enterprise Center (BFEC).

With the help of a $1.4 million EDA investment in the Historic East Baltimore Community Action Coalition - the developer of the project - the BFEC provides production and teaching kitchen facilities that support the creation of new job opportunities, job training opportunities, and support for aspiring food entrepreneurs.

In addition to caterers and specialty food producers, the facility will also accommodate local urban farmers, gardeners and other growers seeking to either further process their fresh crop (wash, sort, cut and package) or produce a product with a shelf life. It will also serve as a commissary kitchen and wash out for area vendor carts and food trucks.

Humanim will provide programing for the BFEC through its City Seeds and its School of Food programs.

The project is expected to help create 150 new jobs over its first 5 years of operation.

Located on a site that used to be the Baltimore City Water Works Pumping and Repair Station, the BFEC is the initial anchor of The Baltimore Food Hub (HUB), a $23.5 million historic renovation project situated on a 3.5-acre campus in Baltimore’s Broadway East community.

By clustering food-related uses in a single campus, the HUB will link East Baltimore to Maryland’s food manufacturing economy, bringing new life to a disinvested urban area and making it a game changer for many.