…The final piece of the package is probably the most delicious, as it addresses state income tax credits for culinary arts and food-science infrastructure projects. Under HB 568, if the total base investment is greater than $15,000, but less than $150,000, each investor would receive a tax credit of 10%. If it’s greater than $150,000 and less than $1 million, the credit would be 15%. For anything topping $1 million, the credit would jump to 20%.

 Chef John Folse, who has been a Louisiana culinary mainstay for more than 25 years on radio and TV, called the incentive a “no-brainer,” since part of the state’s tourism appeal is directly related to food. In recent years he has built up his $50 million food empire, bolstered largely by a massive food processing plant in Donaldsonville that employs 200 people creating cheeses, meats and other manufactured eats. His company produces everything from chili for Walt Disney World to a brown-sugar glaze for TGI Friday’s restaurants.

 He’s planning an $8 million expansion and as many as 100 new hires next year. “Had tax credits been available been to me, you can imagine where we would have been,” Folse says. “I would have reinvested the money and designed a $9 million expansion and hired more Louisiana people.

Landrieu says it’s easy to generate excitement over food and entertainment, but many people shy away from dumping millions into growing the sectors, mainly because they’re nontraditional markets for the state. But he says he’s trying to change that, and the Legislature appears to be falling in line. “You have to do the same thing for the cultural economy, from a tax policy perspective, as we do for other industries to help them grow,” Landrieu says. “We can longer treat them differently.”  Read More