Last April, Born & Bread founder Jennifer Smurr celebrated three years since her bakery had first opened at the Lakeland Downtown Curb Farmers Market. At her anniversary weekend, the bakery sold over 3,000 pastries. On a normal Saturday you can still find a line formed down Dixieland by 7 a.m., waiting for the doors to open at 8 a.m. to get their hands on seasonal cruffins, savory croissants, fresh carrot cake and, of course, Benton’s Breakfast sandwiches (with extra arugula, please.)
But unknown to many who pass through the doors each week, Born and Bread first began at Catapult Kitchen. True story: in actuality, Jennifer initially had not intended to be rolling out cruffins or croissants on a weekly basis and yet the item has become a trademark for the bakery. (For the full story of Born & Bread’s humble begins, read here at The Lakelander.) Since Jennifer has been featured in Food + Wine, USA Today, invited to bake at international food festivals, and now has close to 50k followers on Instagram. No doubt the success of Born and Bread has come with many early mornings (think of a wake up call around 12 a.m., for an 8 a.m. open time) and sacrifices for Jennifer and her team, before moving into her very own space.
Born and Bread is one of many bakers and food ventures that have made their way through Catapult. Others also include A Cow Named Moo, Honeycomb Bread + Krazy Kombucha.
Currently, Catapult is accepting new members and prepping to help launch more culinary dreams off the ground. Interested, but not sure if you’re ready just yet? Fill out their interest form + swing by for a look of the space to see if it could be the right fit for you.
“The focus of Catapult’s kitchen,” explains Maggie Leach, Kitchen Director of Catapult “is to help food-based entrepreneurs get started in Lakeland.”
The program is designed to serve consumer packaged goods companies (think Patriot Coffee) or pre-restaurant or pre-bakery ventures (think Born and Bread or The Poor Porker). For Catapult, the biggest win is seeing companies out-grow the kitchen space and launch into their own locations.
The expanded kitchen incubator is ideal for growth-oriented companies. Catapult’s kitchen offers 24/7 access to space, equipment, + smallwares, enabling new businesses to start small.
For more information on joining Catapult’s kitchen contact Maggie or call 863-940-9660.
