On January 14th, The Brooklyn Economic Development Corporation hosted the first informational event on the Food Retail Expansion to Support Health: “Supermarket Attraction Seminar: NYC Outer Boroughs.”  The goal of the event was to bring together brokers, supermarket operators, developers and community activists. A panel presented incentives available through the F.R.E.S.H. as well as barriers to supermarket development in New York City.  The panel and discussion focused primarily on what operators and developers need in order to open up or renovate new supermarkets in high need areas.

Success for a supermarket comes down to two critical factors: demographics and rents,” said panelist Patricia Brodhagen, vice president of public affairs for the Food Industry Alliance of NYS, a trade association. It was noted repeatedly by panelists and supermarket operators that Brooklyn has the population. High rents and low profit margins were the major barriers discussed.  

The event was a success in terms of getting basic information out to operators, developers and brokers about the program and for community activists to learn more about what supermarket operators look for in a site. Unfortunately, “nothing was mentioned on the dialogue that needs to exist with communities on the need for good food and good jobs.” noted Samantha McLane, Bread for the World.

Please see the attached link to the Brooklyn Daily EagleSlides for Supermarket spaces - Fresh Neighborhood profiles - Supermarket Access in Brooklyn - Fresh Fact Sheet article highlighting the event. Click the following links to access that information.

In addition, for more information about whether or not your particular sites are eligible for any incentives discussed at the Supermarket Seminar please feel free to contact Katie Scallon at kscallon@nycedc.com

Two Bronx Supermarkets are the first stores to apply for F.R.E.S.H. financial incentives

Do to our united efforts to include community and good jobs standards in the F.R.E.S.H. program, stores applying for public financing are required to fill out a questionnaire that asks questions on community and labor standards.  The first two stores to apply for financial incentives through the F.R.E.S.H. program are a Foodtown supermarket damaged by fire on 204th Street, and a Western Beef store and accompanying warehouse on Webster Avenue. The questionnaires will be posted on the fresh website nyc.gov/fresh on Thursday, a week before they will appear before a public hearing on Feb. 4th. The Foodtown on 204th street is unionized and the workers are represented by UFCW Local 342.  According to an article published in the Supermarket News on January 12th, “in both projects, proposed assistance includes payments in lieu of city real property taxes, exemption from city and state mortgage recording taxes and exemption from city and state sales and use taxes.” The first public review hearing will take place on Feb. 4th 10am at 110 William Street, 4th Floor, New York, New York. This hearing is open to the public to give testimony and to come and learn about the stores.

If you would like to review project applications and cost benefit analyses before the date of the hearing, copies will be available on Friday Jan. 28th on the website of New York City Economic Development Corporation at www.nycedc.com or may call (212) 312-3598. If you would like to review the questionnaire copies will be available at nyc.gov/fresh.

If you are interested in giving testimony at the hearing please call (212) 312-3598

or mail New York City Industrial Development Agency Attn: Ms. Frances Tufano

110 William Street, 5th Floor New York, New York 10038

New Report Charts Food Hardship in Every District

- Joel Berg, Executive Director New York City Coalition Against Hunger

by: Joel Berg

A new study by the D.C.-based Food Research and Action Center (FRAC) underscores the severe food hardship faced by Americans in this brutal economic climate. FRAC’s report compiles for the first time ever food hardship data in every one of the nation’s congressional districts and top 100 metropolitan areas.

In my home city of New York, the numbers are dismal. People in seven of the 13 congressional districts here faced severe food hardship in 2008-09. The 16th Congressional District in the South Bronx, where more than one in three residents could not afford enough food, had the highest rate of food hardship in the nation, and the 10th Congressional District in Central Brooklyn, where 30.8 percent faced food hardship, had sixth highest rate out of all the country’s 436 congressional districts. Considering that the city still has 56 billionaires, this is an appalling turn of events, which provides the latest wake-up call that all levels of government need to take immediate action to reverse the city’s growing hunger poverty, and inequality of wealth.

While key parts of the city face a particularly severe problem, I believe the most notable news from this data is just how widespread food hardship is in all corners of the city and nation. Even in the relatively least hungry congressional district in the city – Rep. Anthony Weiner’s district that has been traditionally thought of as a bedrock middle-class of neighborhoods in Brooklyn and Queens – more than one in 12 residents couldn’t afford enough food, a level likely higher than in the majority of industrialized Western nations of the world. Because America’s wages are now so low and our safety net so gutted, even the parts of New York City suffering the least are still in worse shape than most people in our competitor nations.

In the New York metropolitan region, including suburban Connecticut and New Jersey, 21.6 percent of households with children faced food hardship. The problem is so widespread that, even when you factor in some truly wealthy areas in Manhattan, Westchester, Long Island, and suburban Connecticut and New Jersey, more than one in five people in the metropolitan area couldn’t afford enough food. Statewide in New York, 17.4 percent of all state residents faced food hardship.

The new report only underscores the need for a Good Food, Good Jobs program that I proposed here in December. Low-income areas across America that lack access to nutritious foods at affordable prices — the so-called “food deserts” — tend to be the same communities and neighborhoods that, even in better economic times, are also “job deserts” that lack sufficient living-wage employment. A “Good Food, Good Jobs” initiative would be a good way to tackle our interrelated hunger, malnutrition, obesity, and poverty problems.

Download the report: Food Hardship: A Closer Look at Hunger - Data for the Nation, States, 100 MSAs, and Every Congressional District (pdf)

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