GrowNYC Wholesale is a nonprofit food distributor and food hub delivering the best from local farms. We help small to mid-size farms in our region thrive by connecting New York City’s wholesale buyers with high-quality farm products, and we work to ensure that all New Yorkers have access to these fresh, delicious foods.
GrowNYC Wholesale exists to help regional family farms thrive by delivering their high-quality products to New York City’s wholesale buyers, and also to ensure that all New Yorkers have access to these fresh, delicious foods.
We source exceptional products from over 50 farms throughout the course of the year – including fresh produce, locally-grown and milled grains, pastured eggs, and more – and deliver these products year-round to partners throughout New York City. We provide the same great quality to everyone, from restaurants to food pantries, affordably and intentionally, because we believe that fresh, local food should be available to every New Yorker. Our mission and values, along with GrowNYC’s rich history of bringing farm-fresh food to New Yorkers for nearly 50 years, is what sets us apart from traditional distributors.
History
In 2006, two young men and a business owner from Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn partnered with GrowNYC to create the first Youthmarket, a farmstand modeled after our Greenmarket farmers’ markets but staffed by neighborhood youth, selling fresh produce from local farms. The first local produce delivery showed up in a station wagon. Youthmarket proved a unique and popular place for communities to gather around healthy food, quickly outgrowing that station wagon. Today GrowNYC trains young adults to operate 15 Youthmarket farm stands in their neighborhoods, and in many cases, to be the sole source of farm-fresh food to their communities.
As Youthmarket was expanding, and as consumer demand for local food and transparency in the food supply chain skyrocketed, GrowNYC saw that regional farms – particularly mid-sized farms, too large for our retail markets but too small to compete in the traditional wholesale marketplace – continued to disappear at an alarming rate. Chefs at city restaurants came up with modified bicycles and other innovative ways to pick up local produce from nearby farmers markets, but institutions and businesses serving food at scale required deliveries by the truckload. Meanwhile, the distributors’ trucks that did contain some local products only traveled to the highest paying customers, thus neglecting too many zip codes. It was clear that a wholesale supply chain dedicated to meeting the needs of both New Yorkers and regional farms was greatly needed.
In response, GrowNYC launched Wholesale (formerly known as Greenmarket Co.) in 2012, building the infrastructure to get more locally-grown food than ever before to wholesale buyers, and capitalizing on the unique strengths of both small and mid-sized farms. We prioritized customers and communities who have historically lacked access to fresh, healthy, regionally-grown foods.
Our Food Hub
As New York City’s first local food hub, GrowNYC Wholesale does more than pack and deliver fantastic farm products. A food hub has a triple bottom line, supporting positive impacts on people, the planet, and local economies along the entire supply chain – from rural economies to historically marginalized communities. We consider everyone along the food supply chain a stakeholder and partner – farmers, farmworkers, drivers, staff, customers, communities, and each and every New Yorker who enjoys our food.
Nationally, farmers selling to traditional wholesale channels make less than 15 cents of every dollar spent on food – a historic low – and communities everywhere are suffering the effects of reduced access to fresh and healthy foods. At GrowNYC Wholesale farmers set their own, fair prices and we work to ensure that the foods our growers produce are equitably distributed and accessible to all. And, as with our Greenmarkets, GrowNYC Wholesale provides full farm traceability and transparency, ensuring that consumers can still have that relationship with the individuals who grow and raise their food.
Accomplishments
Our accomplishments to date include:
Delivering over 8 million pounds of regional farm products to communities and organizations working to increase fresh food access
Helping to conserve over 15,000 acres of farmland on over 50 farms
Operating Farmstands and Fresh Food Box sites in 30 communities each year
Scaling Toward the Future
In 2024, GrowNYC’s NYS Regional Food Hub will open – creating critical infrastructure for an alternative regional food system that treats all stakeholders with dignity, and getting fresh, affordable food into low income communities.
Support 120+ mid-sized regional farmers, providing new vital business to Northeast farmers scaling up to wholesale production
Provide permanent storage and distribution infrastructure to GrowNYC
Substantially increase the amount of locally-grown affordable produce via GrowNYC food sites and wholesale delivery to soup kitchens, older adult centers, daycare centers, and nonprofits
Create infrastructure for large institutional partners, including hospitals, universities, city agencies and public schools to source local farm products
Dramatically increase GrowNYC’s economies of scale and operational capacity allowing us to pass along savings to the communities we serve