Free Arkansas Food Bootcamp Returns With $5,000 on the Line

A free crash course for food makers is coming back to Northwest Arkansas, and the deadline is Jan. 8. Only about 20 spots exist. They go to food entrepreneurs or farmers who want to grow bigger. One participant may leave with $5,000 to put into the business.

The setup is simple. Eight weeks total. One session happens in person to kick things off. The other seven happen online. Money coaching comes from students in a hospitality finance and profit optimization course at the University of Arkansas. There is also group learning with other local food and drink founders. Everything runs in English and Spanish. People from Arkansas can apply, plus folks in certain counties in Missouri and Oklahoma, as long as the goal is breaking into the Northwest Arkansas market. The whole thing wraps up April 24 at the Emerge NWA Food Festival in Bentonville, held at The Momentary. That event puts value-added farm products, craft drinks, specialty foods and baked goods in front of the public.

This is the eleventh round of the program, which is called Cureate Courses. Organizers say more than 100 businesses have gone through it statewide. Those businesses fall into three groups: farmers, makers, caterers and restaurant owners. Past graduates include Loblolly Creamery, Southern Tail Brewing, Fennel and Fire, and Murder Farm Hot Sauce in Little Rock. Porch Swing Farms in Bigelow graduated too, and it now supplies restaurants like The Root Cafe and Sterling Market in Little Rock. Firelight Farm in Searcy has sold produce to restaurants and to farmers markets run by the St. Joseph Center of Arkansas in Little Rock. The very first group ran back in 2021.

One of those 2021 graduates is Stephanie Kirkpatrick. Her story shows why the training might matter. She was running a food truck in Boston during the COVID-19 pandemic. The money coming in was not close to enough. So she built a vegan frozen food brand called Bartleby's Food. The truck got sold. Her products are now made in Springdale at Spring Kitchen, a space she opened that handles retail, manufacturing and shared kitchen use for other cooks. It also hosts cooking classes, private dinners, tastings and pop-ups for pickup and delivery. Kirkpatrick says the courses taught her the wholesale side, which she had never figured out alone. Building a pricing sheet. Pitching store buyers. Handing out samples. Setting up a sampling table inside a grocery store. That knowledge opened a revenue stream she did not have before. She is coming back for the eleventh round, this time to teach instead of just learn.

Cureate runs the program from Washington, D.C. Chief Executive Officer Kim Bryden relocated to Northwest Arkansas in 2021 to build out regional work like this. A community development financial institution called FORGE partners on the courses. The Walton Family Foundation pays for them. Beyond the classes, Cureate tries to connect hospitals, schools and company cafeterias with food grown nearby. That raises a fair question worth sitting with. Free training and a small cash prize can help one founder, but does a cohort of 20 change a regional food economy? The graduate list is the only real evidence available so far. Interested applicants can find details at cureate.co/courses-nwa.