KiCo

The Hague's next generation of food

KiCo empowers The Hague's next generation of food innovators and fill a crucial gap in the market for low-threshold kitchen rental options. They aim to stimulate and accelerate the food transition and help food businesses successfully launch and scale with sustainability and inclusivity at heart.

KiCo provides 850m2 of shared and private production kitchen space and an innovation kitchen to serve sustainable food businesses at every stage of their journey. With their community approach, members are offered workshops and collaborations with experts such as innovation chefs, regenerative farmers, and successful food entrepreneurs.

Being located in Titaan, The Hague’s new innovation hub at the heart of Binckhaven, Europe’s largest impact campus, KiCo’s members benefit from a uniquely powerful ecosystem of impact entrepreneurs, investors, strategic partners and local government.

“We were initially looking for a space in Amsterdam since that’s where we lived. But when we saw Titaan and met Diana from The Hague & Partners and met the team at ImpactCity, we thought we had to move. It’s just a great ecosystem filled with supportive partners, willing to connect, help and empower newcomers like us. We just felt at home, which made it a no-brainer to move down to The Hague.”

- Sami Simreen, co-founder of KiCo

Our Campaign Marketeer Robin spoke with Sami a few weeks before their opening. Read their full interview below. 

Who is KiCo?

KiCo is an 850 sqm food lab & co-working kitchen which in essence means two things. 

1.  KiCo is where food entrepreneurs, at various stages, launch and scale their businesses at a fraction of the cost and with a much smaller personal risk. The shared kitchen concept means that they don’t need to worry about the facilities, nor do they need to wait months or spend thousands building their own facilities. We get to give them operational piece of mind at a stage when they should be focused on acquiring customers, developing products and building a solid business. 
2. KiCo is where creative and impact conscious food businesses can grow successfully thanks to our diverse community of peers, experts and partners. We’ve built a network of collaborators to really support our members on their journey. Whether they need sales support, a food scientist to help them redesign their recipes as they scale or guidance on how to source better, we have created an approach that ensures they have the support they need, when they need it. 

Can you tell us a bit more about you and your brother?

We’re Sami & Samer, 2 brothers who have a love for food. Before KiCo, Samer scaled a small family catering business to the largest private caterer in the UAE, with over 2000 employees and producing 60-100k meals/day. During this time, he built his expertise in food from large scale industrial catering to restaurants, retail and events such as the Abu Dhabi F1 GP. While, Sami, a brand expert has built his career in marketing and innovation strategy, working with some of the world’s most recognisable brands in food, retail and sustainability. 

After the successful exit from our family business, and a few years away from food, we decided to get back into it but this time focusing on supporting others on their journey, with a special focus on impact driven food business working on creating a better food system. We saw there was a huge gap for low threshold commercial kitchen rental options where people can professionalise, get inspired and grow their business quickly and that's how KiCo was born. Besides the amazing infrastructure, we also provide a rich community of peers, experts and partners who can support our members on their journey so they have everything they need to succeed. 

What is your mission? What impact do you hope to achieve with KiCo?

We’re on a mission to inspire food business to innovate, grow and succeed. We’ve built the kitchens very differently to anything on the market. Colourful, playful and fully equipped with state of the art equipment so as to create a sandbox from which creativity can blossom. Then the community events, workshops and challenges equip them with the expertise and mindset to succeed. We basically want to be a hub where different players in the food system connect in order to accelerate positive change. 

How did you end up in The Hague?

We were initially looking for space in Amsterdam since that’s where we lived, but when we saw Titaan and met Diana from The Hague & Patners and met the team at ImpactCity, we thought we had to move. It’s just a great ecosystem filled with supportive partners, willing to connect, help and empower newcomers like us. We just felt at home, which made it a no-brainer to move down to The Hague.

KiCo opened its doors in the beginning of 2024. Interested in an intro tour? Sign up here!