Success Story Powered by Long Island Regional MEP Center: Manufacturing & Technology Resource Consortium (MTRC)
Plainview, Long Island’s Little Bird Kitchen is a New York based manufacturer filling a vital role that enables startup food companies to accelerate their own growth by providing “co-manufacturing” capacity leveraging the recipes of the startup company. A common challenge for food startups is growing their production capacity at a reasonable cost at a pace capable of meeting demand while not over spending. The co-manufacturing capability allows the startup to outsource the production either permanently or until such time as they are ready to invest in their own scaled production setup.
Little Bird Kitchen (LBK) was striving to accelerate its own growth to fill its mission of servicing food startups leaving incubators but not yet ready to fully scale their businesses’ production capacity. LBK turned to the New York Manufacturing Extension Partnership regional center on Long Island, the Manufacturing & Technology Resource Consortium (MTRC) at Stony Brook University with a target of significantly increasing the production capacity of LBK while doubling their staff by the end of 2020.
LBK was eligible for matching funds for capital investments through MTRC’s supplemental award program. With these funds, they were able to procure additional equipment for their manufacturing line and expand their clientele.
Advice, grants, networking– MTRC provides opportunities to grow, learn, expand, connect. What a resource!
Results of the engagement included:
- 1 Additional job
- Matching funds for capital expenses
- Dramatic increase in capacity and automation on their manufacturing line
Read the full story at the NIST website here.
