Parsons workshop helps food entrepreneurs boost profits and sales

Aspiring home bakers, caterers and small food startups in Decatur County got a free shot at turning recipes into revenue at the Ayers Entrepreneur Center in Parsons. The ScaleUp Kitchen workshop focused on a question that trips up many local food businesses: how to move beyond hobby sales and build a model that actually makes money.

Held June 8 from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. at 52 West 8th Street, the session was open to food and beverage entrepreneurs at any stage of business development. Organizers said participants were set to learn how to identify the most profitable sales channels, get pricing and costs under control, tighten operations and leave with a clear action plan to improve revenue and margins.

That practical emphasis matters in Decatur County, where many food businesses begin in home kitchens, at farmers markets or as side hustles before owners ever think about retail growth, catering contracts or packaged goods. For a person making baked goods, sauces, jams or catering trays, the biggest hurdles are often not talent or demand but basic business math: what to charge, where to sell and how to keep expenses from eating up profit.

The workshop was led by Lisa Brown Tucker, whose background includes food entrepreneurship and business coaching. Program materials say Tucker serves as chief business coach and consultant for retail programming at Epicenter Memphis, and that she co-created City Tasting Box, a venture said to have doubled revenue in two years and gained attention from Forbes, Black Enterprise and Thrillist. That kind of experience gave the session a sharper commercial focus than a typical small-business seminar.

The event also reflected a larger effort to turn the Ayers Entrepreneur Center into more than just a meeting place. The center is described as a central employment hub for Parsons and rural residents, with co-working space, private offices, meeting rooms, an AV studio and business development support. The Ayers Foundation Trust has linked it to Come Home Tennessee, a rural economic-growth initiative aimed at reducing the number of economically distressed and at-risk counties in Tennessee.

ScaleUp Kitchen itself has been described as a 14-workshop West Tennessee program built for restaurants, food trucks, caterers and bakeries. In Parsons, that made the June 8 class part of a broader pipeline: free, low-barrier training aimed at helping residents move from informal food sales to businesses with stronger pricing, better margins and a better shot at surviving beyond the first season.