Join us for a special fundraising event, celebrating the opening of The Hatchery Chicago's new facility! Enjoy delicious food, hear stories from Chicago food icons, and be among the first to see our new, one-of-a-kind space! To celebrate this momentous occasion, Chicago legend Doug Sohn of Hot Doug's will join us to share stories from his own entrepreneurial journey.  Proceeds from this event will support The Hatchery's programming in 2019 and help us advance our mission of creating sustainable economic growth and new…

Have you come up with a creative name, slogan, or logo but don’t know how to protect it? Or are you not quite sure what gives a trademark strength? What are trade secrets? How can you use them to make your food business more successful? What steps must you take to protect a trade secret? Are there any aspects of your food business that are protectable by copyright? Cheryl Balough, an intellectual property attorney, will review trademark basics, give you…

Small businesses can manage short-term growth on QuickBooks, but this is about what comes next. Once you start to recognize growth, a system that can scale and manage the business from end-to-end is crucial to your continued success. Financials, Inventory Management, Order Management/CRM, Supply Chain/Procurement, and Demand Planning: this session will examine fully-automated workflows to enable scalability and stimulate growth. About the Speaker: Jordan Weber is a Hatchery Network Member, and is a Food & Beverage Account Executive at NetSuite, the…

In this Food Science 101 seminar, you will learn about the basic building blocks of foods, how they interact, and how and why you need to avoid spoilage of these components during processing to extend shelf life. We will talk about new ingredients on the market as well as best practices in early stages when you are creating your new products in the kitchen or lab. You will also learn how to realistically evaluate your products during scale-up, including how…

A web presence that clearly defines your mission and brand is integral to success. Our workshop hosts will take you through the fundamentals of preparing, outlining, and executing a simple website. Learn the basic steps to help you start creating your business website using Squarespace as a platform. Bring your laptop for this interactive workshop, and join us in learning the shortcuts and steps that make web design easy & fun! *This workshop is free for residents of the West…

Join us for the FIRST #HatcheryNetworking event in our new building! Hatchery Networking events are a great place to meet other entrepreneurs, as well as members of our larger food community! Hatchery Networking is FREE for members. Exciting guest speaker(s) to be announced very soon! You won't want to miss this one!