Producing a Resilient Food Future
Food is sustenance, health, and life. It’s also how New Yorkers make their mark on the city: sharing cultures, innovating, and coming together. Access to nutritious food is a fundamental right. And food means jobs: 500,000 workers and 40,000 businesses move 19 billion pounds of food through the five boroughs every year.
To get to your plate, food depends on vital industrial infrastructure. From local, innovative forms of farming; to cleaner, more resilient transportation; storage spaces that keep food safe and fresh; and of course managing food waste, industrial businesses are pivotal to every part of the food supply.
When some of those businesses can’t operate properly, as happened when COVID-19 struck, other industrial companies and workers can adapt their operations and provide what’s needed—but only if we support them.
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StartElectrifying the Food Transportation System
Did You Know?
19 billion pounds of food enter NYC yearly, mostly relying on the roads.
Some arrive by air (niche, high-quality food like sashimi-grade fish), ship (grains), or rail (non-perishables like potatoes and onions).
Why it matters?
The City’s efforts to electrify fleets, and switch to barge and rail delivery will reduce truck traffic, pollution, and emissions. This is particularly vital for communities living near major food distribution centers like Hunts Point in the Bronx.
Innovating How We Grow Food
Did You Know?
Farmland needs space, so food is mostly grown outside the city and transported hundreds of miles before getting to our plates.
In the City, businesses are creating innovative, eco-friendly ways of producing food with vertical farms that don’t require miles of transport.
Why it matters?
Vertical farms allow plants to be grown locally, producing 10 times the yields of traditional methods using high-tech innovations that use less fertilizer and produce less waste.
These farms need high-ceiling industrial spaces and depend on a range of industrial processes and jobs to stay operational.
Supporting Local Food Manufacturers
Did You Know?
Manufacturing turns raw or processed food into tasty products, like flour into bread, cabbage into kimchi, or meat into patties.
Though large-scale production happens outside NYC, fresh products like bread or sauces happen close to the final point of consumption.
Why it matters?
Food is the city’s fastest growing manufacturing subsector, with jobs growing 27% from 2005 to 2015. Food entrepreneurs make a mark on New Yorkers eating habits and can add capacity that can be tapped during crisis.
In order for food manufacturing to thrive, these entrepreneurs need protected industrial space.
Investing in Food Processing Entrepreneurs
Did You Know?
Processing turns raw food into something usable like—milling grain into flour or slicing cabbage.
Though processing mostly happens outside NYC, unique value additions—slicing vegetables, mixing spices, and butchering animals for freshness and specific cuts—happen in the City.
Why it matters?
These local services are important entrepreneurship paths that connect New Yorkers to their food, like fresh carnicerias and live markets, produce marts, or fishmongers.
Having local capabilities adds capacity that can be utilized during crises, as they were during the COVID-19 disruption.
Packing Food Safely & Quickly
Did You Know?
Food must be packaged in safety-regulated, specialized containers, for either individual retail use or wholesale use by restaurants.
To ensure no contaminants enter the product, food is immediately packed by manufacturers or third-party contract packagers.
Why it matters?
Local contract packagers can provide important services for food entrepreneurs in NYC, helping startups scale quickly, saving them money, and creating efficiencies. They need protected Manufacturing Zoning to provide this important service.
Championing a Diverse Food Scene
Did You Know?
NYC is home to 14,000 grocery stores and bodegas, and 24,000 restaurants and bars along with thousands of soup kitchens, caterers, and other institutions that sell prepared food. These are the main food access points for New Yorkers everyday.
Why it matters?
NYC’s famously diverse food scene is an important part of the city’s culture, tourism, and employment. Every single restaurant and bar depends on a unique variety of wholesalers, as well as industrial technology suppliers to keep food reliable and safe. The City needs to support these local industrial activities in order to make the supply chain resilient and accessible for all New Yorkers.
Composting Our Food Waste
Did You Know?
Residential food scraps are collected by the City, then trucked or barged to privately run waste management facilities outside of NYC. Similarly, waste from businesses is collected by private waste hauling companies.
Food waste comprises between 18% and 33% of all waste in NYC, producing nearly 120,000 metric tons of methane.
Why it matters?
To expand both commercial and residential organics collection and facilitate composting, NYC needs a series of industrial companies and spaces to collect, sort, and process organic food waste at scale. With this commitment, NYC could save nearly 120,000 metric tons of methane a year.
Investing in Eco-friendly Distribution
Did You Know?
When food is ready to be delivered to its final destinations in the City, trucks are currently the main mode of transport, accounting for 99% of last-mile deliveries.
Why it matters?
Every 20 miles on an e-bike prevents 7 tons of CO2 emissions—equal to planting 100 trees.
Electrifying and diversifying transport (to include cargo bikes, rail, and barges) and bringing distribution hubs closer to delivery points will reduce truck traffic, pollution, and emissions.
Increasing Cold Storage Facilities
Did You Know?
Fresh, perishable food must be kept in refrigerated warehouses, or “cold storage.” Electrified space to store food locally is vital to the security of our food supply. Without designated cold storage, business capacity and food distribution is insecure and less environmentally sound.
Why it matters?
Due to a loss of manufacturing space, food suppliers are having trouble finding cold storage. Businesses are even forced to use refrigerated trucks for storage, emitting diesel fumes to power them.
With more cold storage facilities, organizations like GrowNYC, which connects upstate farms with families in NYC, could expand food distribution and provide more New Yorkers with fresh, local produce.