In the recent years there has been an increase in small food business in Copenhagen, which awakes a curiosity of what the opportunities for the future food entrepreneurs of Copenhagen are. This increase of small food business has, amongst other food initiatives in Copenhagen, created awareness about food as a market of growth, which caused the Municipality of Copenhagen to support initiatives which fosters food entrepreneurs in order to secure this positive development.
This thesis is an explorative study focusing on the establishing phase of one of these supported initiatives; the kitchen incubator CPH Food Space, a public-private funded project.
The research takes a starting point in the literature of business incubators in order to clarify whether a business incubator aimed at the food sector, also named a kitchen incubator, can contribute positive to the opportunities of the future food entrepreneurs of Copenhagen. Further field research was the method found suited for studying the case while observation of the establishment of CPH Food Space and field interviews gave an insight knowledge not gain otherwise.
A stakeholder analysis, of the most important stakeholder appearing in the establishing phase, was conducted as well as a mapping of the scape of food and innovation of Denmark. The analysis and the mapping provided a picture of the complexity of public-private initiative and the mapping clarified the scape of the thesis.
CPH Food Space was found to be an initiative to have a positive impact on the opportunities of future food entrepreneurs of Copenhagen and creating public-private food innovation initiatives could contribute the increase of innovative food environments.