Resource Spotlight: The Food Loft
Resource Spotlight: The Food Loft
This week we talk with Casey Hogan, community manager at The Food Loft. The Food Loft focuses on helping food and beverage startups and entrepreneurs in Boston by providing coworking space, events, and an extensive community of similar-minded people.

GH: What is your name and your role?
CH: I’m Casey Hogan, the Community Manager at The Food Loft.
GH: What is the Food Loft?
CH: We’re a community of entrepreneurs and small companies forging a future for food.
GH: How can startups and founders benefit from the work you do?
CH: We’ve designed a few ways to help food startups and entrepreneurs. We have our coworking space, where companies can work out of and get access to printing and shipping supplies, conference rooms, and the community within the Loft. Our founders have been working in food for over 30 years, so we also spend a lot of time both mentoring food companies and connecting them with resources, investors, and other people who can help them across both the Boston and San Francisco food ecosystems.
GH: What are you learning from Boston area startups?
GH: What is your view of the Boston food and beverage startup scene?
GH: What is the Boston ecosystem lacking from your perspective?
CH: I’d love to see more collaboration within the innovation ecosystem in Boston as a way to attract entrepreneurs and startups from outside the city. Boston is fantastic in that the community is supportive, but it seems like many small companies opt for NYC or San Francisco.
GH: What is the best/worst piece of advice you were given?
GH: What does the future hold for Boston innovation community?
CH: I think we’ll see further diversification of the kinds of companies and stage of companies operating in Boston. Healthcare is obviously a big area of innovation, and then there’s plenty of representation of “general tech” startups out there. But what I’m starting to see is startups tackling areas outside of the norm in Boston. Food is a great example of this and there are plenty of networks supporting food and foodtech in Boston. Clean energy is another, with Greentown Labs in Somerville helping to create a groundswell around that sort of innovation. I’m hopeful this represents a shift where Boston can become known as a hub for startups tackling problems in very specific market segments, with related services and resources to help them in those areas.
Over the long-run, I also think we’ll see a continued shift in the kinds of companies that Boston attracts. While NYC outpaces Boston in terms of M&A activity, Boston’s IPO track record leads the market (we’ve had 7 IPOs so far this year). I’d like believe that this demonstrates that entrepreneurs can build companies that last here in Boston. And while that’s true in other cities, perhaps the direction the market is headed is that Boston will become more of a beacon for serious entrepreneurs who are focused on creating lasting solutions.
