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Q&A
Regional food hubs and their role in food distribution
0:41:31
·
111 sec
Kate MacKenzie discusses the role of regional food hubs in New York City's food distribution system, focusing on the Grow NYC regional food hub set to open in May. The hub will supply wholesale products to nonprofit organizations and has potential for growth.
- Grow NYC's regional food hub will supply quality wholesale products to nonprofit organizations
- The hub currently has nearly 400 partners and is looking to expand
- There are four aggregation sites across the state, some of which supply food to the city
- The city is learning from successful regional food hub models to improve its own operations
Amanda Farías
0:41:31
Are there do we have any natural linkages with regional food farm hubs?
0:41:36
And just kind of in your touching on in your testimony speaking about the regional food hub with Grow NYC that's set to open in May, is that going to be a system we depend on to help alleviate or reduce some of the costs for for the essential foods that we're looking at that maybe are going to fluctuate depending on all the factors that was mentioned in your testimony?
Kate MacKenzie
0:42:01
Yeah.
0:42:02
So the regional food Grow in My C's regional food hub is to supply great quality wholesale product to currently, it's a lot of nonprofit organizations that maybe have childcare centers or other programs.
0:42:16
So it is a source of food, of of food that is to to buy in the same way that another, you know, source might be, but they're really connecting connecting again on the on the great quality of that product and again having, I think it's three close to 400 partners right now, but looking to grow even more.
0:42:36
So we also and I can share, you know, sort of a spin off of what council member Brewer was speaking about with the regional working group.
0:42:48
We have a lot of there's a I think four aggregation sites across the state, some of whom are even supplying the city with food.
0:42:57
Headwaters Food Group is one of them, and there are there are others that might even be providing testimony here.
0:43:04
So really trying to look to those programs, not just certainly to supply us, but also teach us a lot about how they're operating, how they, you know, meet their margins.
0:43:14
We all know that food businesses are really hard to it's almost unheard of to make a profit, but thinking about what is the successful model that we can learn from.