diff --git a/Bootstraps/Symfony.php b/Bootstraps/Symfony.php
index 669f6b9..9206170 100644
--- a/Bootstraps/Symfony.php
+++ b/Bootstraps/Symfony.php
@@ -38,6 +38,7 @@ public function initialize($appenv, $debug)
      * Create a Symfony application
      *
      * @return \AppKernel
+     * @throws \Exception
      */
     public function getApplication()
     {
@@ -54,7 +55,13 @@ public function getApplication()
             (new \Symfony\Component\Dotenv\Dotenv())->load(realpath('.env'));
         }
 
-        $class = class_exists('\AppKernel') ? '\AppKernel' : '\App\Kernel';
+        $namespace = getenv('APP_KERNEL_NAMESPACE') ?: '\App\\';
+        $fqcn      = $namespace . (getenv('APP_KERNEL_CLASS_NAME') ?: 'Kernel');
+        $class     = class_exists($fqcn) ? $fqcn : '\AppKernel';
+
+        if (!class_exists($class)) {
+            throw new \Exception("Symfony Kernel class was not found in the configured locations. Given: '$class'");
+        }
 
         //since we need to change some services, we need to manually change some services
         $app = new $class($this->appenv, $this->debug);
diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index 390424b..1b98385 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -12,6 +12,10 @@ HttpKernel adapter for use of Symfony and Laravel frameworks with PHP-PM. See ht
 
           composer require php-pm/httpkernel-adapter
 
+  3. Optionally provide the namespace of your Kernel using the `APP_KERNEL_NAMESPACE` environment variable. 
+  Example: `APP_KERNEL_NAMESPACE=Acme\MyProduct\`. This will attempt to use the class `Acme\MyProduct\Kernel` 
+  as the fully qualified class name
+
 > **Note**: For Symfony, make sure your `AppKernel` is autoloaded in your
 > `composer.json` (shouldn't be an issue for projects created using the Standard
 > Edition after November 2015):