Day: June 19, 2025

No Rock Stars, No Mercedes: A Russian Expo Shows the Cost of Divorce With the West  The New York Times

On Tuesday, June 18, Gov. Kathy Hochul announced the completion of the New York State Regional Food Hub, a $45 million cold-storage facility that will transform food access across New York.

Hochul said the first-of-its-kind 60,000-square-foot facility, operated by GrowNYC in the Hunts Point neighborhood of the Bronx, will enable a 600 % increase in locally sourced food distribution—from approximately 3 million pounds to 20 million pounds annually by 2034—while creating over 200 new jobs and providing a critical economic lifeline to New York farmers.

The governor said the facility, supported by $19 million from New York State, as recommended by the New York City Regional Economic Development Council, represents a joint State and City investment designed to strengthen the local food economy, support New York farmers, and improve access to healthy and affordable foods for low-income communities.

“The New York State Regional Food Hub is a game-changer for families and farmers across New York,” Hochul said. “From the streets of the Bronx to the farms of Batavia, the Empire State has so much to offer. That’s why we invested in this massive GrowNYC facility to expand access to fresh, local food while creating new economic opportunities for our agricultural producers.”

Empire State Development President, CEO, and Commissioner Hope Knight said, “We are proud to support this transformative infrastructure that will create jobs and dramatically expand access to affordable, healthy food for New Yorkers.

“ESD’s strategic investment enhances the efficiency, sustainability, and equity of our state’s food system by connecting upstate farmers directly to downstate markets, ensuring urban families have access to the quality produce they deserve,” she added. “The New York State Regional Food Hub represents a model investment that will benefit communities across our state.”

New York State Agriculture Commissioner Richard A. Ball said, “The New York State Regional Food Hub is designed to be a game changer for our farmers bringing products to market and for our families, who will have greater access to quality New York-grown fruits and vegetables.

“We learned during the pandemic that we needed to double down on our efforts to strengthen the food supply chain and make sure that we had a food system right here in New York that was resilient and could feed its communities,” he added. “This Food Hub is a tremendous piece of that puzzle and will provide an incredible benefit to our underserved populations and farmers.”

GrowNYC President and CEO Marcel Van Ooyen said, “We’re beyond grateful for the vast support from city and state leaders that led to the completion of this state-of-the-art facility, and that will advance our work in promoting equitable food access in New York. Our Food Hub provides ample opportunities for GrowNYC and farmers to make a tangible impact on the everyday lives of underserved New Yorkers. I’m hopeful it will be a scalable model for how cities across the United States can combat hunger while supporting local farm systems.”

Hochul said the Food Hub will enable GrowNYC to quadruple its aggregation and distribution square footage, dramatically expanding wholesale distribution capacity to make fresh, local foods accessible to underserved New Yorkers.

She said the facility would serve wholesale buyers, including institutions and restaurants, while strengthening innovative partnerships with nonprofit organizations.

 Building on GrowNYC’s current work distributing free produce through the New York State Department of Agriculture and Markets New York Food for New York Families program — which unites a network of 20 community partners, including Graham Windham and The POINT, to serve the Hunts Point community and beyond — the governor said the expanded Hub will significantly scale these vital food access efforts.

She said the New York City Economic Development Corporation, the New York City Council, the US Economic Development Administration, Bank of America, and others provided additional funding.

The governor said the facility addresses a critical need identified during the COVID-19 pandemic when food insecurity in New York City grew from 1.4 million residents to approximately 2 million.

By sourcing food directly from regional farms and creating new jobs, she said the Hub will support New York State farmers — minimal- and mid-sized operations — while increasing food distribution capacity and enhancing access to New York City’s wholesale marketplace.

Hochul said the processing facility will assist upstate producers and processors in targeting institutional and private sector procurement opportunities, significantly boosting New York’s agricultural economy while building a more resilient food supply chain.

School is almost out for summer, and while many New York City public school students are looking forward to a carefree break, for others who rely on free school breakfasts and lunches, it may also mark the hungriest time of year.

To combat summer hunger head-on, meal kit delivery service HelloFresh partnered with No Kid Hungry, City Harvest and award-winning chef and TikTok personality Eitan Bernath to distribute more than 1,500 free HelloFresh meal boxes to families at P.S. 177 in Gravesend on June 17.

According to Feed the Children, 13 million kids in the United States experience food insecurity. In New York City, one in four children faces hunger — and the long summer break can make matters worse for many public school students.

Bernath, who serves on the City Harvest Food Council, told Brooklyn Paper the goal of the event was to provide families with “nutritious and delicious” food.

“They deserve to eat just as good food as all of us,” said Bernath, noting that New York City is one of the world capitals of gourmet dining.

“Yet, people that walk right past these restaurants every single day, all day long, don’t have access to any food,” Bernath said. “It’s so easy to take for granted that those of us who aren’t food insecure can just open the fridge, grab something to eat, go to the pantry, grab something to eat. How many New Yorkers don’t have that?”

Potential cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, by nearly $300 billion would further exacerbate the food insecurity crisis and increase demand for food pantries and soup kitchens — demand that has already grown by 85% compared to 2019.

At the same time, reductions to vital federal feeding programs — including the Local Food Purchase Assistance Cooperative Agreement Program (LFPA), which allows food banks to purchase food from local farms, and the Emergency Food Assistance Program (TEFAP), which ships food directly to food banks and helps cover operational costs — have made it harder for organizations to meet the growing need.

Jeffrey Yorzyk, senior director of sustainability at HelloFresh North America, highlighted the company’s Hunger Heroes campaign, a partnership with No Kid Hungry aimed at raising awareness about childhood hunger, especially during the summer, when school meal programs are unavailable to students in need.

“Nine out of 10 teachers are worried about the food their students are going to get during the summertime, and up to 85% of them believe that families really should have assistance around food insecurity during the summer as well,” Yorzyk explained. “So with SNAP programs at risk right now and so many things, we really wanted to try and bring visibility to that for the community.”

In addition to the Hunger Heroes campaign, HelloFresh also runs Meals With Meaning, a weekly food distribution effort launched in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic. The campaign distributes about 36,000 meal kits weekly across Brooklyn and several other U.S. cities — and is on track to hit the 10 million mark since its inception.

HelloFresh has also partnered with the New York City Department of Veterans’ Services (DVS) to provide meal kits to veterans and their families through Meals with Meaning.

“[DVS] is really making sure that military veterans and their families are getting food because there’s actually such a disproportionate amount of food insecurity with military families and the Veterans especially,” Yorzyk said.

City Harvest, New York City’s largest food rescue organization, runs the Produce Pals program at P.S. 177. Pedro Urbaez, associate director of direct and community distribution at City Harvest, said he appreciated HelloFresh’s support.

“One in four children in New York City [don’t have] enough access to food,” Urbaez said. “For us to have someone like HelloFresh be able to donate these meals, especially now, right before the school year ends — and summer meals are not something that everybody will be able to access — this is very important to us.”

Urbaez told Brooklyn Paper that 50% of working-age New Yorkers are struggling to make ends meet due to high inflation and the rising cost of living.

“[For City Harvest] it is very important to continue to have things like [the meal box distribution] and be able to give people access to food and be able to give them at least some sort of break, financially, so they can go ahead and take care of other things that they might have to take care of [like] rent and bills,” Urbaez said.