TODAY IS

Today is Giving Tuesday and MFBEC needs your help to keep the Tasting Room at the Maine Tasting Center safe, efficient, and welcoming for all. Your donation today will ensure that we can repair, replace and maintain essential items - like refrigeration units, safety gear, and kitchen equipment, so we can continue showcasing Maine's small food and beverage producers without interruption.

What Do We Need?

Blodgett Convection Oven

Our Blodgett Convection Oven in the Learning Center (upper left hand corner)
is one of the most-used pieces of equipment on campus. It allows us to offer hands-on baking classes that highlight Maine Grains and other locally grown ingredients, as well as diverse cooking workshops featuring products like green crabs, Maine heritage beans, and oysters. This oven is essential to creating authentic, educational food experiences that teach people how to cook with Maine ingredients.

Television Monitors

The TV monitors in our Tasting Room, the only visual medium we have for communicating with walk-in visitors, are also beginning to fail. These screens are key to orienting guests: they display tasting flight options, highlight producer profiles, promote upcoming classes, and support visual presentations for guest instructors and community partners. Without them, we lose a core communication tool that brings the stories of Maine’s food producers to life.

These tools are not used by our staff alone. Our equipment and facilities are regularly shared (at very low or no cost) with partners including Maine Sea Grant’s Tide to Table program, the University of Maine Summer Institute, the Maine Aquaculture Innovation Center, plus numerous trade associations and individual producers who lack their own infrastructure for public education. Having a centrally located, fully equipped space available for such collaborations is a rare and valuable resource in Maine. Maintaining and replacing this core equipment is essential to sustaining not only our own programming, but also the broader ecosystem of organizations working to strengthen Maine’s food and beverage economy.

Every gift, big or small, makes a real difference. Together, we can protect the space that brings Maine’s best flavors to life! 💙

Today is Giving Tuesday!

Help Us Raise Money to Purchase New Equipment!

Team Members