Throughout Maine, food and beverage companies are posied to be economic drivers for the state, but for many of these companies, finding and securing adequate facility space to grow is challenging.

“After companies max out their existing footprint and equipment through efficiencies, they often need new space,” explains CEI’s Director of Sustainable Agriculture and Food Systems, Brett Richardson. “But finding well-suited, affordable space that has the design elements you need to create a food-safe, efficient, clean production environment is lacking in Maine.”

Now in it’s second year, CEI’s Tastemakers Intiative, in partnership with FocusMaine, decided to tackle the issue by combining networking with powerful data.

Earlier this month, the partnership brought together over 90 food entrepreneurs, real estate developers, municipal economic development leaders and investment professionals at Flight Deck Brewing in Brunswick to discuss collaborative opportunities to expand Maine’s food and beverage manufacturing infrastructure.

The event included the release of maps for several communities along Maine’s I-95 corridor that contain “hot spots” ripe for food production facility development, providing actionable data for future planning.

Visit our Tastemakers Initiative page to learn more about this series and check out some development hot spots from Biddeford to Waterville.