Too many cooks won't be a problem as new shared professional kitchen opens

A father-son duo has opened up a coworking kitchen for aspiring chefswith culinary dreams, but not the hundreds of thousands of dollars needed to realize them.

Professional chef Herbert Obrecht brings more than 40 years ofexperience to the venture, while his son Andrew brings the business and technological savvy.

The Obrechts say they've identified a unique business opportunity in Calgary to enable people who make food to save on the overhead costs as they share not only equipment, but expertise.

"I think the culinary community really needs to stick together. A rising tide raises all ships," said Andrew Obrecht, who also founded YYC Cycle, a chain of spin studios in Calgary.

He and his father have now opened up a 360-square-metre industrial kitchen withovens, walk-in coolers, freezers,gas ranges, barbecues, you name it.

Members at Coworking Culinary pay fees based on how many hours per month they want to spend in the kitchen, and how much shelving and storage they'd like to have.

The space caters to all sorts of food-minded entrepreneurs, from people who run meal prep and delivery companies, to people who sell their goods at farmers' marketsand people who supply local grocery stores, like Co-op or Sobeys.

"It's an industry that is very well known to be a very tough industry," said Andrew.

"Even in Calgary, many restaurants are closing down. Maybe people have a dream of doing ... cakes and cupcakes and so on. But they will never reach their vision because it's too expensive."

That's why Ally Mohamed, head chef at Nutri-Go, signed up to be one of the five companies now working out of the space.

When asked whether he'd have been able to get his meal prep business off the ground without this coworking space, Mohamed didn't hesitate.

"Absolutely not. For us to become profitable, we need access to a kitchen like this. And to get our own kitchen would be extremely expensive. It's not feasible for what we are doing," he said.

And it's not just the cost savings that Mohamed sees as a selling point. He said he's benefited tremendously from Herbert's generosity in sharing his wealth of knowledge.

And that kind of collaboration and community is exactly what Andrew hopes to foster, not just here in Calgary, but across the country.

"We want to continue to build this brand.We want to be the coworking brand in the culinary industry in Canada," he said.