New York, NY— GrowNYC is bringing the farmers market to wholesale buyers: packing, organizing and delivering pallets of regionally grown fresh fruits and vegetables to grocery stores, bodegas, restaurants, and other retail outlets throughout New York City. Greenmarket Co. is an extension of what GrowNYC has been doing for the last 35 years via its celebrated network of retail farmers markets: bringing the freshest, highest quality products to New Yorkers and supporting our regional farmers. Through Greenmarket Co., GrowNYC is working with regional farmers to meet an enormous demand for local food on a larger, institutional scale.
By providing delivery and brokering services, the infrastructure that brings produce from the farm to the store, GrowNYC is reducing barriers for buyers and farmers alike. In addition to working with high-end restaurants and caterers, Greenmarket Co. delivers products to corner grocers and GrowNYC’s food access programs such as Youthmarket (a network of farmstands operated by neighborhood youth) ensuring that nutritious, local products are available in neighborhoods with few fresh food outlets.
Operations for Greenmarket Co. have been generously funded by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, Deutsche Bank, and the Local Economies Project of the New World Foundation. City Harvest is providing Greenmarket Co. with temporary shipping and receiving space in its Food Rescue Facility in Long Island City, Queens to store the produce temporarily prior to delivery.
“GrowNYC has been a reliable partner in our FreshConnect program and shares our goal of providing more access and easier access to locally grown, fresh farm products, especially in underserved areas,” said New York Governor Andrew Cuomo. “The launch of Greenmarket Co. will facilitate this important work.”
"When we launched our comprehensive FoodWorks agenda, we wanted to ensure that residents had increased access to local, healthy food while supporting our regional farmers,” said New York City Council Speaker, Christine Quinn. “Greenmarket Co. will help us achieve those goals, and I look forward to working with GrowNYC as it helps buyers throughout the city meet the demand for healthy, fresh food."
“Greenmarket has been a pioneer in connecting urban neighborhoods to regional farms – a goal the City very much shares. The launch of Greenmarket Co. is a great next step in expanding this work,” said Kim Kessler, Food Policy Coordinator of the City of New York.
“Greenmarket Co. creates a fair wholesale marketplace for farmers and ensures that local, high quality foods are affordable to consumers across the city and across income levels,” said Marcel Van Ooyen, Executive Director of GrowNYC. “Our mission-driven bottom line is key to preserving midsized farms in New York State and beyond by providing them with a source of revenue that will enable farmers to keep their land in agricultural production, rather than sell it off for development.”
“The Doris Duke Charitable Foundation strives to support a local, sustainable food system that protects the environment while serving the needs of New Yorkers,” said Andrew Bowman, director of the foundation’s Environment Program. “This project will dramatically increase the amount of locally-grown produce brought into the city while allowing local farmers who use sustainable practices to retain a greater share of the value they create.”
“Deutsche Bank Americas Foundation is proud to support the expansion of GrowNYC’s mission through Greenmarket Co.,” said Gary Hattem, President of Deutsche Bank Americas Foundation. “We are always looking for targeted approaches that cause markets to function in ways that benefit low-income communities. Greenmarket Co.’s unique model has the potential to create jobs and bring greater prosperity to rural regions while also creating access to healthy food for underserved urban communities.”
“We believe that local and regional food production is a great way to strengthen local economies here in the Hudson Valley and across the Northeast. By strengthening the connection between food producers in rural areas and food consumers in urban areas we also take fuller advantage of the inherent resiliency of local agriculture,” said Jerry Cosgrove, Associate Director of the Local Economies Project of the New World Foundation.
“City Harvest opened its Food Rescue Facility in December 2011 and as we step closer to maximizing its full capacity, of holding a large volume of our rescued perishable food items on a short-term basis, we felt that it would be a great use of our resources to provide a space for GrowNYC,” said Jen McLean, Vice President of Community Impact at City Harvest. “GrowNYC donates approximately 500,000 pounds of farm-fresh produce to City Harvest each year to help feed the hungry and we are proud to be able to provide storage in our Facility the next several months to this organization which, like City Harvest, works to ensure that all neighborhoods have access to healthy foods.”
"Fresh produce provides vital nutrients we all need, but for older New Yorkers with limited mobility, accessing it can be an impossible challenge," said Beth Shapiro, executive director of Citymeals-on- Wheels. "We are grateful for our collaboration with GrowNYC which enables us to now deliver locally grown fresh fruit and vegetables right to the doors of homebound elderly New Yorkers."
“Greenmarket Co. is an excellent avenue to move additional products that we can’t move at our retail markets,” said Mark Rogowski of S. & S.O. Produce Farms.
Since September 2009, GrowNYC has managed the Wholesale Farmers Market located in the New Fulton Fish Market in the Hunts Point section of the Bronx. GrowNYC continues to seek support to build a stateof- the-art wholesale facility to enable the hundreds of midsize farmers in our region to meet New York City’s demand for fresh, local food.
About the partners:
GrowNYC/Greenmarket: GrowNYC is a hands-on non-profit which improves New York City’s quality of life through environmental programs that transform communities block by block and empower all New Yorkers to secure a clean and healthy environment for future generations.
City Harvest:
Now serving New York City for 30 years, City Harvest (www.cityharvest.org) is the world's first food rescue organization, dedicated to feeding the city’s hungry men, women, and children. This year, City Harvest will collect more than 42 million pounds of excess food from all segments of the food industry, including restaurants, grocers, corporate cafeterias, manufacturers, and farms. This food is then delivered free of charge to some 600 community food programs throughout New York City by a fleet of trucks and bikes. City Harvest helps feed the more than one million New Yorkers that face hunger each year.
Doris Duke Charitable Foundation:
The mission of the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation is to improve the quality of people’s lives through grants supporting the performing arts, environmental conservation, medical research and the prevention of child abuse, and through preservation of the cultural and environmental legacy of Doris Duke’s properties.
Deutsche Bank Americas Foundation:
The Deutsche Bank Americas Foundation administers the philanthropic activities of Deutsche Bank within the United States, Latin America and Canada. Together, the Bank's Community Development Group and Foundation carry out the firm's corporate social responsibility commitments through a program of loans, investments and grants. Based in New York City, where the majority of grants are awarded, the Foundation supports nonprofit organizations that concentrate on community development, education, and the arts.
Local Economies Project of the New World Foundation:
The Local Economies Project (LEP) of the New World Foundation has the main objective to identify and provide the necessary resources to develop a replicable model for local economic and community development, focusing on regional farmers in the Hudson Valley and encouraging ongoing efforts to create a sustainable regional food system. The LEP aims to support farmers in their efforts to develop farm businesses so that they are economically and environmentally sustainable and able to participate in the community and economic development of the Hudson Valley and neighboring regions. LEP also aims to help build the capacity and infrastructure for the regional food system for the benefit of the region’s farmers, citizens and communities.
Source: Greenmarket
