The Harlem Local Vendor Program (HLVP)—a partnership between the Columbia-Harlem Small Business Development Center (SBDC), Harlem Park to Park, Hot Bread Kitchen Incubates, Whole Foods Market, and others—is designed to help manufacturers of locally made consumer goods increase their business acumen and capacity so that they may contract with more and larger retailers. Columbia Dining supports these local vendors with its purchasing power, having spent over $100,000 to date, and is furthering its efforts and solidifying its commitment to local vendors through the launch of the Uris Incubator Program.
The new Uris Incubator Program connects select graduates of the HLVP to Columbia University students by selling their products at Blue Java Cafe at Uris Hall and hosting monthly demonstrations so that students can meet the producers and sample their new products. If successful, products will be expanded to other cafes throughout Columbia University, and in some cases they will be incorporated into student meals in dining halls.
While they are developing their products, HLVP participants have the opportunity to receive advice from Columbia MBA students with expertise in marketing, operations, and finance. In the spring, tables are set up weekly in Uris Lobby for HLVP business owners to learn about pricing, packaging, positioning, and promotion from their eventual customers, Columbia University students.
Students have continuously expressed a desire to buy local, sustainably sourced food and other products; sourcing from the HLVP is one of many opportunities that Columbia University has developed in response. Current vendors include Hot Bread Kitchen, which hires new Americans to bake breads that are used throughout the University Dining system; Spadét, a Green America–certified business that sells olive oil–based soaps and beauty products, available in restrooms in Faculty House and for sale at the Jerome L. Greene Science Center; Clean Plate Co., which sells the Hot Bread Kitchen Incubator–made (and often sold-out) smoked gouda macaroni and cheese in the Uris Blue Java Cafe; Kamuni Creek Beverages, Caribbean beverages using tropical super fruits; and Vy Higginsen’s Mama’s One Sauce, which can be found throughout campus dining halls.
To learn more about the HLVP and the Uris Incubator Program, visit the Columbia-Harlem SBDC website at https://www8.gsb.columbia.edu/sbdc/ and, while visiting campus, be sure to look out for locally made products sold by HLVP graduates.
This article was originally published in the Spring/Summer 2018 issue of The Columbia Newsletter.
