Trained as a chef and baker at New England Culinary Institute and the French boutique hotel La Cheneviere, Jenny Cook has been a food professional since 1996. She is the owner of Madison’s West Street Bakery, which opened in November 2002.

Don’t let the name fool you. Jenny says 80 percent of her revenue derives from catering, not the bakery itself. She has been excited about the new possibilities open to her at the Ohio River Valley Food Venture. She hopes to expand into entrée retailing ­ perhaps organic pizza crusts or frozen lasagna — and she will seek Food Venture Manager Richard Mezoff’s help with packaging, labeling, marketing and shipping her products.

Jenny looked to the SBDC for business assistance even before the idea of Food Venture was conceived. She received individual counseling from SBDC Advisor Bill Cord before opening her bakery, and in 2004 completed the SBDC’s NxLevel Entrepreneurial Training Course. “Anybody starting a business should take advantage of the NxLevel class. It teaches you to think like a business person,” she asserts.

Jenny has big hopes for her work at Food Venture. “I want to have a business that I can leave to my children,” she says, thinking of her son Jacob, 7, and daughter Emmy, 5. “I want to start a company that will endure long enough to put my grandchildren through college.”