BALTIMORE — Frozen grilled cheese manufacturer A Friendly Bread was bursting at the seams in its commissary kitchen, which prompted the search for a larger facility two years ago. Founder Lane Levine has called B-More Kitchen home for the past six years, but due to limited space, the company is relocating to a 17,000-square-foot former kosher chicken processing facility in Baltimore.

“When we got our first distribution deal with Fresh Market with the frozen grilled cheese (sandwiches), we’ve known we weren’t going to continue to grow at this scale at the incubator kitchen,” Levine said.

The company looked at a lot of facilities before finding its new home.

“The reality of the commercial real estate picture out there is turnkey food production kitchens on the market at the size you need is virtually impossible,” Levine said. “We were looking at empty warehouses and spending half a million dollars building it out as a kitchen or some kind of kitchen that you could try to morph into both of those scenarios. We found those places and started to go down the rabbit hole of fixing it up. Those deals didn’t come through partly because we’re not capitalized enough to be able to wave a magic wand and make our dreams come true.”

As funding continues to be limited, entrepreneurs are having to find creative ways of keeping financed. In Levine’s case that includes buying used equipment for the company’s new facility, which was not in the original plans.

“The original plan was to build a decent size capital stack that would allow us to bring in some nice efficient equipment, and none of that money came through,” he said. “I bought a used oven from a bakery in Wisconsin and a mixer from another bakery in Baltimore. In terms of equipment buildout, we’re going to get our minimum acceptable setup and once we build we’ll be able to spruce it up.”

The former kosher chicken processing facility presents a big opportunity for the company by offering larger production, freezer and storage space and a place to create a co-storage hub. Levine said he hopes to be operating out of the facility by October.

Source: A Friendly Bread

“There’s a 5,000-square-foot freezer and a 2,000-square-foot fridge, which is way more than we have at the commissary kitchen and way more than we’ll need even if we were to multiply our current revenue by 10 or 20 times,” he said. “We’re making a few minor modifications to the pre-existing production space, which is allowing us to start another business of leasing cold and freezer storage to other companies throughout the region.

“We’re going to be the master tenant. It helps us to build that part of the business and to get on our feet while we grow into it. The ultimate plan is the grilled cheese business grows enough that we need the whole building, and we’ll be able to produce and store everything and not even need to sublet to anyone.”

Facility renovations include creating a bread room and converting cooler space into a grilled cheese assembly and packaging area, which will help with production flow and stop potential contamination of raw flour with finished products, Levine said. The company’s first renovations include making the freezer and fridge operational.

“Keeping the bread operation separate from the ready-to-eat and ready-to-cook sandwich assembly is a safer approach,” he said.

While Levine was looking for a larger facility, he was surprised at the unexpected additional business prospects it provided.

“Whenever there’s an opportunity for some other outlet to diversify or stabilize, it makes you able to live another day,” he said. “I do think the real success will come from building this grilled cheese business. It may take more time than we thought but having the sub-leasing as a resource to help stabilize the business, that could be what allows us to survive in the meantime.”