First Course is an online education platform to teach food entrepreneurs the essential business skills to launch their venture. The program hosts experienced professionals in accounting, business planning, and other sectors who supply the resources essential to getting these new food ventures off the ground.

First Course is brought to you by New Sun Rising, which runs an incubator supporting food enterprises with valuable education and training to get started.

The program is a collaboration with Shift Collaborative, a leading creative agency in the hospitality industry, La Dorita, a kitchen share incubator program for food that aims to break down the barriers to entry into the highly regulated food industry and Smallman Galley, America’s first restaurant incubator, based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

This comprehensive program allows its participants to learn the most essential skills for starting their own food ventures.

First Course is made possible by generous support of The Heinz Endowments, a grant making organization that uses the Pittsburgh region as a laboratory for the development of solutions to challenges that are national in scope. The Endowments fields of emphasis include philanthropy in general and the disciplines represented by our five grant-making programs: Arts & Culture; Children, Youth & Families; Community & Economic Development; Education; and Environment.