Food Business Incubation Services Office Hours

Join Jacob Freisthler, the Director of ECDI's Food Business Incubation Services for our open office hours designed to help food-based businesses and entrepreneurs like you. Get the technical assistance and consultation you're looking for to help boost your food business!

Topics to cover in your 30-minute in person session:

• Compliance and licensing guidance
• Food safety
• Effective cost control
• Menu engineering
• Streamlining your operations to save time and money
• Business planning and development

Space is limited, so register today!

ECDI's Food Fort is an industrial-sized facility offering all the physical resources a restaurant or food-based business needs, along with training, services and access to capital.

Whether you're just starting up, expanding your existing business or looking for a more cost-effective way to operate, Food Fort is a smart solution. You can reduce your costs and minimize your risk, over taking on the expense of your own facility.

Since 2004, ECDI has assisted Ohio’s entrepreneurs through their one-stop-shop business services model, suited to meet the needs of all entrepreneurs, regardless of what business stage they’re in. From providing capital to entrepreneurs looking to expand their businesses, to providing focused, business-specific educational opportunities to enhance entrepreneurial skill sets, ECDI works with their clients to meet their specific needs. Whether you merely have a business idea or are opening up your fifth location, we have helped more than 15,000 entrepreneurs to take advantage of the services we provide.

Mark Kelnhofer, President and CEO of Return On Ingredients® LLC, is an
international speaker and author on recipe costing and menu engineering. He has
more than 25 years of experience in bottom line-boosting accounting. After
graduating from Ohio Dominican University with his undergraduate degree (1993)
he immediately went into manufacturing accounting. He spent eight years in a
variety of industries including plastic injection molding, lighting equipment,
transit buses, and tire repair products.

In 2002, Mark was brought into the Bravo/Brio Restaurant Group (NASDAQ:BBRG)
to implement a cost control system based principles learned from his past industry
experience. After implementation, BBRG experienced five consecutive years of cost
reductions resulting in millions of dollars in savings. Mark started Return On
Ingredients® LLC in January 2009 based on those same principles including
accurate recipe documentation and costing, effective menu engineering, and
process improvements. In 2012, Mark started the Restaurant Institute LLC. It was formed to be an educational resource for the industry. Mark holds a Masters in Business Administration (2005) and a Bachelor of Arts majoring in Accounting and Business Administration (1993) from Ohio Dominican
University in Columbus, Ohio.