Resources

Marcel Van Ooyen is the Executive Director of GrowNYC and former Legislative Director for the New York City Council. Mr. Van Ooyen took leadership of GrowNYC in 2006. Over the last 10 years at Marcel’s initiating, GrowNYC has vastly expanded its efforts with new initiatives including: Fresh Food Box, Youthmarket Farm Stands, Learn It Grow It Eat It education program anchored in the South Bronx as well as NYC’s first all local food hub: Greenmarket Co. GrowNYC’s Food Stamp in the Farmers’ Market initiative is considered a National model, with $1,000,000 in EBT sales in 2013. By responding to a diverse community and ramping up efforts, affordable, healthy, fresh food is getting into the hands that need it most across the city.

Logistics -- our local food blind spot: Michael Rozyne at TEDxManhattan

https://youtu.be/BDO_UiEh0eY   Published on Mar 20, 2014

http://tedxmanhattan.org and http://redtomato.org

Michael Rozyne is Executive Director of Red Tomato, a non-profit produce 'food hub' based in Plainville, MA. He's been marketing small farm products for three decades, including work on conventional and organic farms in Maine, and as Purchaser/Marketer for a regional food distributor in the Northeast.
In 1986, he co-founded fair trade coffee company Equal Exchange, now a leading US fair trade company. Rozyne started Red Tomato in 1996, to bring global fair trade principles to farmers in the US. His current obsession is finding a way to make local produce available in a grocery store near you.

Why Big Box Retailers Cost Communities More

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/ryan-spong/big-box-retailers-communities_b_10213098.html

What were once staples of daily living in our communities -- butchers, bakers, fishmongers, and greengrocers -- are now seen as inefficient when large chain grocery stores deliver all-in-one convenience. But "fast and convenient" has weakened our communities. As the African proverb says, "If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together." Big food corporations want to grow fast so they go alone. But for our local communities to go far, we must go together. And homegrown businesses are a critical link for a strong, vibrant, healthy community; nowhere is this more prevalent than our local food economy. The scale of efficiencies in the modern food economy are driven by lean manufacturing practices, low-cost packaging, targeted marketing, and supply chain management to the big boxes that sell it. By shopping at Big Box chains, we try to figuratively stretch our dollars further but end up literally stretching ourselves (obesity) and our communities (food deserts) to unhealthy breaking points.

These stretched dollars actually leave our local communities destined for a public company balance sheet. Conversely, a dollar spent at a local business circulates 2.5 times within the community in the form of profits, jobs, and charities.