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Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Odd Lots Podcast.

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Speaker 2: I'm Jill Wisenthal and I'm Tracy Alloway.

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Speaker 1: Tracy, I just want to start this episode by thanking

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Speaker 1: you for those tomatoes you brought me the other day.

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Speaker 2: How many tomato references are we going to make it

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Speaker 2: in our episodes going forward? How long can we stretch

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Speaker 2: this out?

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Speaker 1: I don't know, something hit me when, like in my

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Speaker 1: mid thirties. You know, it's like when you're a kid,

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Speaker 1: the whole excitement of summer is like not being in school,

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Speaker 1: and then you get a little older and the whole

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Speaker 1: fun of summer is I don't know, like travelering or

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Speaker 1: partying or something. And then something hit me in my

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Speaker 1: late mid thirties or late thirties where it's like the

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Speaker 1: best part of summer is like really fresh tomatoes.

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Speaker 2: I don't know if that's really sad or great that

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Speaker 2: the thing we look forward to in our old age

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Speaker 2: is fresh tomatoes. But I'm glad I could do that

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Speaker 2: for you, Joe.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. So for listeners who don't know, Tracy hits a

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Speaker 1: garden and she posted some tomato pictures and I was like,

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Speaker 1: I need some. So Tracey brought some Anyway, they're the

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Speaker 1: best produce I've had in a while. And I'm just

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Speaker 1: gonna say, and this is a contested point, but there

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Speaker 1: are people who claim that, by and large, the quality

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Speaker 1: of produce in New York City is not what they

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Speaker 1: would expect in a world classic.

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Speaker 2: Oh now wait a second, Joe, you're attributing this to

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Speaker 2: other people. Now you say that New York City doesn't

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Speaker 2: have good produce.

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Speaker 1: I'm just parroting something I saw. And some people say, like, all,

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Speaker 1: the quality of onions here is terrible. I actually do.

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Speaker 1: I kind of agree with that. With the onions, by

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Speaker 1: and large, I don't really notice it, but I know

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Speaker 1: this is popular. I searched on Reddit a bunch of

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Speaker 1: people said this, What do people say it? On Twitter?

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Speaker 1: There are some New York City produce is controversial.

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Speaker 2: So I don't cook enough in New York to have

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Speaker 2: an educated opinion about this. I will say one thing

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Speaker 2: I noticed moving from Hong Kong to New York is

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Speaker 2: it's almost an inverse picture. So in Hong Kong you

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Speaker 2: have incredibly chack and incredibly fresh, very accessible fruit and

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Speaker 2: vegetables everywhere. You have the wet markets and things like that,

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Speaker 2: and meat is very expensive, whereas when you come to

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Speaker 2: the States, you can buy like a twenty pound brisket,

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Speaker 2: it doesn't actually cost that much. But getting a bag

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Speaker 2: of onions is it seems more difficult. It's almost reversed.

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Speaker 1: That is interesting, and it does raise this question. And

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Speaker 1: you know, it's like a miracle of a modern economic

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Speaker 1: supply chains, capitalism, what have you that we can be

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Speaker 1: in this dent area and by and large we get produce,

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Speaker 1: but I don't know anything about where it comes from. Really,

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Speaker 1: I don't know, Like I don't know anything about the

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Speaker 1: supply chain of produce and so whether it's good or bad.

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Speaker 1: And you know, New York is obviously so diverse in

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Speaker 1: like the types of places one could go grocery shopping.

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Speaker 1: So you have the local change, you have Whole Foods,

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Speaker 1: you have the China.

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Speaker 2: See what I was going to say, This is what

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Speaker 2: I find quite interesting about New York is you do

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Speaker 2: have that mix of different retailers, so everything from the

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Speaker 2: big chains like Whole Foods that people are probably familiar with,

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Speaker 2: all the way down to independent carts basically selling fruit

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Speaker 2: and vegetables.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, it's super interesting. And I literally live on a

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Speaker 1: block and at the corner of my block. There's a

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Speaker 1: guy twenty four seven three sixty five who sells produce,

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Speaker 1: and they say, I don't know how it does it.

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Speaker 1: I should probably just go up and like chat with

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Speaker 1: him one day about his business.

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Speaker 2: Get him on the podcast.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, maybe he'll come on the podcast. It's a great idea. Anyway,

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Speaker 1: produce in New York City so many interesting questions, so

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Speaker 1: much controversy, et cetera. I want to know, like how

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Speaker 1: New York City gets its produce and where it's coming from,

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Speaker 1: and whether the reputation in some corners is a deserved

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Speaker 1: or undeserved.

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Speaker 2: I will say the hardest thing about bringing you those

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Speaker 2: tomatoes was the actual transportation and figuring out a way

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Speaker 2: to bring them into New York without getting them super bruised.

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Speaker 2: So it seems challenging.

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Speaker 1: When you brought them that morning, they had like this nice,

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Speaker 1: sort of like crisp fresh field of them. And then

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Speaker 1: I left him on my desk and I brought him

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Speaker 1: home that night. Oh no, no, no, they're fine. They

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Speaker 1: were still delicious. I kind of like the cold tomatoes.

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Speaker 1: But I think we're going to use the term the

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Speaker 1: cold chain a lot in this episode. And what is

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Speaker 1: the cold chain and what does that mean and how

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Speaker 1: is that different from other supply chain Let's do it well.

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Speaker 1: I'm really excited. We do, in fact have the perfect guests,

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Speaker 1: someone who knows all about food produce supply chains. We're

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Speaker 1: going to be speaking with Karen karp of Karen carp

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Speaker 1: and Partners about how New York City gets its produce. Karen,

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Speaker 1: thank you so much for joining.

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Speaker 3: Us, My pleasure to be here.

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Speaker 1: So so many different questions. I could start by asking

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Speaker 1: you whether the quality of produce in New York City

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Speaker 1: is an undeserved reputation. I could start by asking you, like,

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Speaker 1: you know, what does your background? What is Karen Carpon Partners.

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Speaker 1: I'm just going to start though, what is the cold chain?

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Speaker 3: The cold chain is really a twentieth century invention which

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Speaker 3: allowed produce from all over the United States and Mexico

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Speaker 3: for example, and around the world to get to New

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Speaker 3: York in a food safety safe way, in other words,

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Speaker 3: so that produce wouldn't rot on the way from California

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Speaker 3: to New York. As an example, in fact, Iceberg lettuce

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Speaker 3: was the first product that was transported from California to

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Speaker 3: New York in a train. A railcar that was literally

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Speaker 3: packed with ice, and thus it got that let us

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Speaker 3: got its name Iceberg because it was packed in ice

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Speaker 3: to get its way to New York City.

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Speaker 1: So I already learned something.

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Speaker 3: The cold chain I'm here to teach you. The coal

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Speaker 3: chain basically says. It indicates that from the time a product,

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Speaker 3: let's say a fruit or vegetable is picked in the

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Speaker 3: field or from a tree or a bush if it's

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Speaker 3: a berry, and we are in BlackBerry season, so we

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Speaker 3: can talk about blackberries as well as fresh tomatoes on

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Speaker 3: this episode, from the moment that it is harvested, how

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Speaker 3: it is handled in a way that it gets to

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Speaker 3: not only a city like New York, but gets through

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Speaker 3: the channels in New York that make that iceberg, lettuce

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Speaker 3: or tomato results in the delivery of that piece of

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Speaker 3: fruit or vegetable to a supermarket shelf, to a restaurant,

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Speaker 3: to a bodega, to your corner produce cart. And the

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Speaker 3: whole notion of keep of creating a cold chain and

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Speaker 3: keeping it intact from point A to point B right

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Speaker 3: the fields in California to your produce cart or your

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Speaker 3: refrigerator at home, is to make sure that the product

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Speaker 3: doesn't break down in quality, that bacteria doesn't get into it,

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Speaker 3: that it doesn't lose its flavor, and as I said earlier,

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Speaker 3: that there are no food born illnesses that you could

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Speaker 3: get from consuming something as fragile as lettuce that is

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Speaker 3: grown three thousand miles away.

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Speaker 2: So we talked just then about the cold chain, the

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Speaker 2: temperature being important keeping things fresh. How big a factor

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Speaker 2: is time.

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Speaker 3: Time is the enemy when you're transporting food, because if

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Speaker 3: we're talking about fresh produce, which I think is the topic, Yeah,

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Speaker 3: well let's stick to that. You know, time is the

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Speaker 3: enemy because the minute something is picked, it starts to rot.

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Speaker 3: I mean, that's like a very overstatement of the.

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Speaker 1: We're all dying from the day we're born.

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Speaker 3: Well, kind of.

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Speaker 1: Quite that grim, sorry, but it's kind of the same, right, Yeah.

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Speaker 3: I mean I actually said something like that to a

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Speaker 3: really good friend yesterday on my mother's eighty seventh birthday.

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Speaker 3: So we were talking about that. But yeah, so basically,

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Speaker 3: the minute something is picked is it starts to decay

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Speaker 3: and it starts to break down. And so the cold

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Speaker 3: chain was created. And the cold chain really is just

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Speaker 3: a bunch of different mechanisms. It can be ice, it

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Speaker 3: can be refrigeration, sometimes it's gas, depending on what the

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Speaker 3: product is, what temperature it needs to be kept at,

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Speaker 3: the duration, the duration for which the product needs to

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Speaker 3: be in transport, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And

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Speaker 3: when the cold chain is broken again, going back to

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Speaker 3: that example from California to New York, when the cold

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Speaker 3: chain is broken, that deterioration can set in really quickly.

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Speaker 3: Even if the refrigeration starts up again and it gets here,

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Speaker 3: that product will not be the product that was promised

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Speaker 3: to the buyer.

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Speaker 1: So now we are understand sort of the very general

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Speaker 1: overview of what the cold chain is and what it

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Speaker 1: aims to do. Let's zoom out, what is your background,

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Speaker 1: what is Karen Carpon Partners and what do you do

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Speaker 1: and what is your role within the sort of produce

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Speaker 1: food delivery ecosystem.

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Speaker 3: Sure, so, I founded Karen Carpon Partners in nineteen ninety

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Speaker 3: so a little over thirty three years ago, initially as

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Speaker 3: just a small boutique restaurant consulting firm, because I had

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Speaker 3: been working for about sixteen years or so before that

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Speaker 3: in the restaurant business managing restaurants. Putting together a group

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Speaker 3: of restaurants, building that group from from one to seven

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Speaker 3: restaurants in the late nineteen eighties and then then thin

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Speaker 3: it was I felt like it was time for me

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Speaker 3: to do something else. And there were two directions that

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Speaker 3: I could have gone gone into. I could have gone

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Speaker 3: to work for Danny Meyer the famous restaurant tour and

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Speaker 3: been a restaurant manager in one and actually the only

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Speaker 3: restaurant he had at the time. Or I was offered

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Speaker 3: a job by a consultant who helps restaurants, hotels, etc.

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Speaker 3: Start up their business or their food service, dining services, whatever.

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Speaker 3: And I actually wanted to go work for Danny Meyer.

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Speaker 3: But and he interviewed me and he said, you know,

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Speaker 3: I'm going to offer you the job, but I'm going

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Speaker 3: to suggest. I'm going to recommend you don't take this job.

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Speaker 3: My advice to you is don't take this job. And

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Speaker 3: I said, oh, that's interesting. Why And he said, because

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Speaker 3: you're an entrepreneur and you need to find out what

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Speaker 3: it is that you're going to do. So yeah, it

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Speaker 3: was very cool and it forged, you know, a lifelong

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Speaker 3: friendship with him, which I'm very grateful to have. I'm

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Speaker 3: the fourth generation agriculture and food entrepreneur. My great grandfather

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Speaker 3: came here from the Ukraine in nineteen o seven. I

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Speaker 3: believe he drove a Breakstone cottage sheese card. If you

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Speaker 3: remember those old commercials for Breakstones cottage sheees. He was

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Speaker 3: one of those guys driving a buggy around the Upper

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Speaker 3: east Side selling butter eggs and cheese and cottage she

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Speaker 3: and milk to consumers who would come out of their

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Speaker 3: apartment buildings and buy from a cart because there were

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Speaker 3: no supermarkets. Then my grandfather and he converted that into

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Speaker 3: a wholesale business for butter eggs and cheese, operating out

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Speaker 3: of the Washington market. And then in the nineteen my

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Speaker 3: grandfather was born around nineteen oh nine, and then my

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Speaker 3: father was born in Brooklyn in nineteen thirty two, and

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Speaker 3: by then they had a feed and seed company for

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Speaker 3: the farms in Brooklyn, but Brooklyn was rapidly developing because

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Speaker 3: of the existence of the Brooklyn Bridge. So they picked

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Speaker 3: up everything and moved it out to Long Island to

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Speaker 3: a town called Farmingdale, and ran this feed and seed

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Speaker 3: company from Farmingdale, shipping feed and seed out to the

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Speaker 3: farms on the east end of Long Island where I

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Speaker 3: now live.

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Speaker 1: Oh that's so cool.

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Speaker 3: And my grandfather was recruited from the USDA in the

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Speaker 3: late nineteen forties to go to Cornell University to learn

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Speaker 3: how to make commercial fertilizer because farmers were trying to

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Speaker 3: use this nitrogen and ammonia. They were mixing it up

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Speaker 3: in their barns. As he used to say, they were

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Speaker 3: blowing up their barns. So you know, somebody came the

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Speaker 3: ye done.

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Speaker 2: I haven't mixed up any explosions, though I did find

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Speaker 2: I did find a load of gunpowder that the previous

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Speaker 2: owner left in there.

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Speaker 1: So plenty of blowing up opportunity, yeah, exactly.

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Speaker 3: So anyway, fast forward, my grandfather grew that company. He

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Speaker 3: sold it to a company that eventually sold it to DOO,

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Speaker 3: So you know, fertilizers, those kind of fertilizers or chemicals.

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Speaker 3: My father then became a sales that became a real

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Speaker 3: estate salesperson, working with the farmers on the east end

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Speaker 3: of Long Island. And while he did broker lots of

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Speaker 3: deals to help farmers sell their property to developers, he

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Speaker 3: also broker the first transfer of development rights deal in

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Speaker 3: the country. And that is where kind of my story begins.

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Speaker 3: By creating that kind of real estate mechanism. It was

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Speaker 3: giving Long Island farmers a financial opportunity to stay farming

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Speaker 3: when the land values were going up all around them,

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Speaker 3: and it would have been much better and more profitable

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Speaker 3: to sell to developers. But because of the preservation or

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Speaker 3: the transfer of development rights, there is still and it

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Speaker 3: is actually growing again. A I don't even it's not

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Speaker 3: even nascent, because it's already been going on for fifty years,

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Speaker 3: but a very exciting kind of regional local food production community.

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Speaker 3: And so when I a few years after I quit

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Speaker 3: working for the consultant that I went to work for

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Speaker 3: and I started KKA and P, I actually went back

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Speaker 3: to school and got a master's degree in sustainability because

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Speaker 3: I really wanted to understand the whole ecological, environmental aspect

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Speaker 3: of producing food and why, to your point earlier, why

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Speaker 3: it's so difficult for local food to get into New

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Speaker 3: York City, and why it is difficult and challenging to

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Speaker 3: get produced that tastes good one hundred percent of the time.

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Speaker 2: So history steeped in agriculture and food, we're gonna have

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Speaker 2: to ask you for some Anthony Bourdain style tips about

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Speaker 2: like when to order fish or salads in New York restaurants.

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Speaker 3: I'll try to channel him as best.

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Speaker 2: I can't excelent, but maybe before we get to that.

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Speaker 2: I mean, you mentioned it being difficult to get local

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Speaker 2: produce into New York. So A, what are the difficulties? Exactly?

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Speaker 2: What are the challenges? And then B to Joe's controversial point,

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Speaker 2: which he won't take responsibility for in the intro, does

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Speaker 2: New York in fact have bad produce?

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Speaker 3: Okay, so we need to, I think, start this conversation

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Speaker 3: and in a moment in time, right okay, up until

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Speaker 3: let's just say the nineteen fifties, let's just put it

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Speaker 3: in the middle of the twentieth century, there was some

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Speaker 3: produce that was coming in from across the country, as

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Speaker 3: I mentioned earlier, coming in a box cars, et cetera.

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Speaker 3: Before there was and I think we're going to get

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Speaker 3: to this later in this conversation. Before there was the

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Speaker 3: Hunts Point Produce Terminal Market, which is responsible now for

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Speaker 3: receiving and distributing upwards of twenty five percent of New

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Speaker 3: York City's produce. There was an open air market down

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Speaker 3: in Tribeca on Washington Street. It was called the Washington

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Speaker 3: Street Market, and there were vendors there selling everything fresh produce, beef, chicken, eggs, pork,

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Speaker 3: you name it. It was just open air markets. The

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Speaker 3: produce that was coming from outside the country, I mean sorry,

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Speaker 3: from across the country from the West Coast, for example,

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Speaker 3: or from the Midwest would come in by rail and

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Speaker 3: then be transferred by rail to ferries that would come

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Speaker 3: to the Lower West Side and then be picked up

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Speaker 3: by a middleman and brought to the vendors that were

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Speaker 3: selling in the Washington market. In those days, the priority

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Speaker 3: and the priority, and it made most sense in season

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Speaker 3: to buy whatever was possible to buy as close to

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Speaker 3: New York City as possible. When you ate those tomatoes,

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Speaker 3: yeah they were good.

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Speaker 1: Tracy grew the Tracy grew them.

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Speaker 3: They were Tracy grew them in Connecticut. They were brandy

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Speaker 3: Wine brand, and they were brandy Wine so wonderful. The

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Speaker 3: way the food system used to work in any metropolitan

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Speaker 3: area is that whatever the transportation methods existed would bring

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Speaker 3: the produce either from as far away as possible to

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Speaker 3: create a year round supply of things. But it wasn't

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Speaker 3: always possible to get tomatoes year round like it is now.

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Speaker 3: And when you get those tomatoes year round, in any

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Speaker 3: time from October to July. They're gonna be not great

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Speaker 3: in a city like New York for the most part,

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Speaker 3: because a tomato needs to really be consumed very close

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Speaker 3: to when it's picked, its flavor will deteriorate way quicker

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Speaker 3: than for example, iceberg lettuce, which doesn't really have much

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Speaker 3: flavor per se. It has crunch, it has texture, it

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Speaker 3: has water, but it doesn't really have flavor like a

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Speaker 3: tomato does. So pretty much it was almost like intuitive

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Speaker 3: how food kind of was brought into New York and

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Speaker 3: was consumed. And there were always the extraneous things like lemons.

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Speaker 3: For example, citrus does not grow does not grow close

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Speaker 3: by to New York anytime anytime of the year. Climate change,

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Speaker 3: maybe that will change, hopefully not. Things don't get that bad.

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Speaker 3: So those things were brought in from far away. But

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Speaker 3: it was however, you could get to something when it

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Speaker 3: was ripe and ready to be eaten. Those things were

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Speaker 3: brought to New York. And so that whole kind of

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Speaker 3: intricate web is called the food system. So going back

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Speaker 3: to KK and P, what we are. We are food

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Speaker 3: systems consultants. So our job is to help our clients,

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Speaker 3: which range from government agencies to nonprofit organizations to businesses

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Speaker 3: to help them solve their food problems, and the food

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Speaker 3: problems they are asking us to help solve is it

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Speaker 3: includes creating more access for fresh and healthy food for

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Speaker 3: low income people, to rebuild regional farm and food economies,

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Speaker 3: which is kind of I think the crux of what

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Speaker 3: we're going to be talking about here, to work on

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Speaker 3: supply chain issues, such as for some of the big corporations,

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Speaker 3: help them understand where their ingredients are coming from and

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Speaker 3: how they could get better and more sustainable ingredients, as

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Speaker 3: well as designing and sometimes teaching higher education programs around

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Speaker 3: this whole thing that we call the food system.

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Speaker 1: You mentioned one stat already about Hunt's Point and you said,

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Speaker 1: roughly a quarter of New York City's produce ghosts through there.

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Speaker 1: I don't know much about it. I mean my impression

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Speaker 1: is and I think it's, you know, the grocery store

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Speaker 1: for grocery stores and this gigantic sort of facility of produce.

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Speaker 1: But I don't know. Give us a little bit more

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Speaker 1: sort of description of the role that this Hunts Point

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Speaker 1: terminal plays in the New York City produce market and

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Speaker 1: how unusual or common it is for big cities in

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Speaker 1: the United States to have a facility like this.

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Speaker 3: Sure, so I will answer that question, but I want

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Speaker 3: to say first, if you don't mind, please fresh produce

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Speaker 3: gets to New York City now today in twenty twenty three,

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Speaker 3: one of three principal ways okay, okay, going from sort

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Speaker 3: of small scale to big scale. The small scale is well,

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Speaker 3: the small scale is Tracy bringing you a fe for

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Speaker 3: brandywine to me. But a little bit larger than that

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Speaker 3: are farmers markets. Right so, there are dozens of farmers

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Speaker 3: markets in New York City right now. I don't know

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Speaker 3: the exact number, but it could be close to one

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Speaker 3: hundred and those markets, however, many days they operate rely

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Speaker 3: on farmers, individual farmers picking and packing their produce, trucking

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Speaker 3: it into New York City and selling it to people

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Speaker 3: like you and me selling it direct to customer.

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Speaker 1: Okay.

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Speaker 3: The next level up is the level that a wholesale

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Speaker 3: market plays, such as the Hunts Point Produce Terminal Market

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Speaker 3: in New York City. And later this year they will

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Speaker 3: be a wholesale farmers market opening right across the street

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Speaker 3: from the Hunts Point Produce Terminal Market. This is a

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Speaker 3: project I've been working on since two thousand and two,

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Speaker 3: so we're really ready to see a question.

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Speaker 1: A wholesale market like could trace it even if it's

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Speaker 1: a wholesale could we walk in there? Would we have

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Speaker 1: to be like a licensed buyer for.

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Speaker 3: Hunts Point or for the wholesale farmers market for either.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean you let me mention how tomatoes are

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Speaker 2: you buying, Joe.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, let me just mention the third way because and

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Speaker 3: then you can go back.

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Speaker 1: Yeah.

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Speaker 3: So the third way that produce gets to New York

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Speaker 3: City are through distributors that are picking product up from

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Speaker 3: distribution centers that could be vertically integrated. Supermarket chains have

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Speaker 3: now vertically integrated supply chains. So your Whole Foods, your Dagasino,

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Speaker 3: Sea Town Who or a key food they have very

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Speaker 3: much vertically integrated supply chains now, which means those companies

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Speaker 3: are contracting directly with farmers across the country for the

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Speaker 3: best possible produce at the best time of year, and

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Speaker 3: they come directly to their distribution centers which are outside

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Speaker 3: of New York City and then in fact many in Cheshire,

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Speaker 3: Connecticut just so happens that they're there, and then those

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Speaker 3: are trucked into supermarkets and put on the shelves for consumers.

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Speaker 2: Sorry, So, just to emphasize this point, the way a

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Speaker 2: supermarket like a Whole Foods is getting its produce is

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Speaker 2: going to be different to the way an independent seller

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Speaker 2: with a cart on the street is going to be

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Speaker 2: getting out.

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Speaker 3: Yes, and even different from how an independent grocer. So

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Speaker 3: a small scale grocer or your fresh fruit and vegetable

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Speaker 3: vendor on your corner. Who, by the way, those guys

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Speaker 3: sell a lot of stuff, so you know if they

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Speaker 3: were in a store, they sell enough stuff to have

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Speaker 3: a small store. They're really the good ones, the good

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Speaker 3: ones anyway. So the second part of that question was.

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Speaker 1: Well, just like, give us Hunts Point how unusual, you know,

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Speaker 1: just tell us a little bit more about how the

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Speaker 1: terminal system works.

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Speaker 2: Can we buy from it?

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Speaker 3: Right, So let me go back to the answer that question.

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Speaker 3: So typically not, you're not going to go to Hunt's

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Speaker 3: Point market and buy produce.

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00:21:18,280 --> 00:21:18,760
Speaker 1: You could.

404
00:21:19,240 --> 00:21:21,480
Speaker 3: You could. You could show up in a car. You

405
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Speaker 3: would have to pay a gate fee to get in.

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Speaker 3: You'd have to go at two or three in the morning.

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Speaker 1: That's no problem. Problem, Yeah, neither of both of us

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00:21:29,920 --> 00:21:30,440
Speaker 1: can do that.

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Speaker 3: Okay, And then you would have to buy cases of product, right,

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00:21:34,280 --> 00:21:35,520
Speaker 3: that might be the problem.

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Speaker 2: Maybe we should set up some sort of grocery cooperative

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Speaker 2: and just buy cases of tomatoes every week.

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Speaker 1: I think we should start, you know what I think

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Speaker 1: we should do. We should start what's CSA like those

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00:21:46,359 --> 00:21:49,399
Speaker 1: like like farm. But our trick was we're just actually

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Speaker 1: going to the hunt Point market earlier.

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Speaker 3: That would be really bad.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, sorry, sorry, we'll talk about it after.

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Speaker 3: Yeah. But anyway, so you could you could do that,

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Speaker 3: and you know, but the thing is you're not going

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Speaker 3: to because you're not going to buy a case of

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00:22:04,400 --> 00:22:07,199
Speaker 3: cantalope for example, Right, You're just not going to do that.

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Speaker 3: But the Hunts Point produce terminal market is essential for

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Speaker 3: these small fruit and vegetable vendors, whether they be your

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Speaker 3: street carts, whether they be a bodega.

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Speaker 1: There's like those chains, like I think they're more in

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00:22:20,200 --> 00:22:23,720
Speaker 1: Brooklyn than Manhattan. They're called like mister Coco and mister Mellon,

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Speaker 1: you know those.

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Speaker 3: But they're produce stores, right, yeah.

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Speaker 1: But would those be the level in which they're part Okay?

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Speaker 3: Absolutely, And so those guys will typically send their own vans,

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Speaker 3: okay up to the hunts Point Produce Terminal market, they'll

433
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Speaker 3: get an order, maybe the order is pre set. Now

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Speaker 3: COVID is actually kind of stimulated a whole technological innovation

435
00:22:46,680 --> 00:22:48,920
Speaker 3: at the Hunts Point Produce Terminal market where you can

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00:22:49,080 --> 00:22:51,840
Speaker 3: order ahead of time, and even some of the distributors

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00:22:51,880 --> 00:22:54,240
Speaker 3: at Hunt's Point are delivering now, which they didn't used

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Speaker 3: to do. But yes, you'd send your guy in a

439
00:22:56,920 --> 00:22:59,080
Speaker 3: van up to the Hunts Point market at three in

440
00:22:59,119 --> 00:23:02,639
Speaker 3: the morning. He have his shopping list. He would probably

441
00:23:02,680 --> 00:23:05,800
Speaker 3: be either with a buyer in the van with him,

442
00:23:05,920 --> 00:23:08,679
Speaker 3: or he would be the buyer himself, trained to find

443
00:23:09,320 --> 00:23:13,520
Speaker 3: the exact right product for that particular market. And I

444
00:23:13,560 --> 00:23:16,840
Speaker 3: don't mean the physical market. I mean the customers that

445
00:23:16,960 --> 00:23:20,560
Speaker 3: shop in that market, and the customers who shop in

446
00:23:20,600 --> 00:23:24,160
Speaker 3: any particular market have a certain price mentality around food,

447
00:23:24,560 --> 00:23:28,760
Speaker 3: or even a price ability around food. So often what

448
00:23:28,840 --> 00:23:31,520
Speaker 3: happens in those markets is that you're not going to

449
00:23:31,640 --> 00:23:39,720
Speaker 3: find the most pristine, perfect product. It's gonna be good,

450
00:23:40,080 --> 00:23:42,840
Speaker 3: but it's going to be more perishable, perhaps than what

451
00:23:42,880 --> 00:23:46,160
Speaker 3: you would find in a supermarket like Whole Foods or

452
00:23:47,320 --> 00:23:50,720
Speaker 3: Associated or some of the others, and especially some of

453
00:23:50,760 --> 00:23:54,880
Speaker 3: the real high end stores because they're buying for how

454
00:23:54,920 --> 00:23:57,080
Speaker 3: the product looks. Right, you go into Whole Foods. That's

455
00:23:57,119 --> 00:24:00,320
Speaker 3: what Whole Foods sold us, all right, how the product looks,

456
00:24:00,560 --> 00:24:02,800
Speaker 3: and they're trying to deliver on flavor, but it's not

457
00:24:02,840 --> 00:24:03,880
Speaker 3: really always possible.

458
00:24:04,240 --> 00:24:07,159
Speaker 2: Well, just on this note, talk to us about what

459
00:24:07,240 --> 00:24:11,240
Speaker 2: are the sort of controversies in the food network right now?

460
00:24:11,320 --> 00:24:14,119
Speaker 2: Because you mentioned, you know, the look of food of

461
00:24:14,160 --> 00:24:16,600
Speaker 2: produce versus the taste. I remember that's been a long

462
00:24:16,680 --> 00:24:20,400
Speaker 2: running one. People talk a lot about food deserts in America.

463
00:24:20,520 --> 00:24:23,840
Speaker 2: I imagine that might be less of an issue in

464
00:24:23,880 --> 00:24:26,760
Speaker 2: New York. But what are people sort of debating, you know,

465
00:24:26,800 --> 00:24:29,240
Speaker 2: if you go to the farmer's market, like, what is

466
00:24:29,280 --> 00:24:30,800
Speaker 2: the hot topic of debate?

467
00:24:30,960 --> 00:24:33,760
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean the hot topic of debate no matter

468
00:24:33,800 --> 00:24:37,480
Speaker 3: where you are are, where you're functioning anywhere in the

469
00:24:37,480 --> 00:24:40,800
Speaker 3: food system, including as eaters, the hot topic at the

470
00:24:40,840 --> 00:24:43,800
Speaker 3: moment is how are we going to be able to

471
00:24:43,840 --> 00:24:47,520
Speaker 3: grow fruits and vegetables with climate change raging through the world.

472
00:24:47,840 --> 00:24:50,199
Speaker 3: I mean, that's the hot topic. That is the only topic,

473
00:24:51,280 --> 00:24:54,000
Speaker 3: and I mean it's not really the only topic because

474
00:24:54,000 --> 00:24:57,439
Speaker 3: the second topic actually is access. So we do not

475
00:24:57,600 --> 00:25:00,520
Speaker 3: use the term food dessert at KK ANDP. In fact,

476
00:25:00,920 --> 00:25:03,480
Speaker 3: policymakers in New York have not used that term for many,

477
00:25:03,480 --> 00:25:06,640
Speaker 3: many years. There day, I'm sorry, that's okay, we'll bring

478
00:25:06,720 --> 00:25:07,080
Speaker 3: up to day.

479
00:25:07,880 --> 00:25:09,720
Speaker 2: What do people say food scarcity?

480
00:25:10,080 --> 00:25:13,040
Speaker 3: Well, we don't talk about the neighborhood so much as

481
00:25:13,080 --> 00:25:17,239
Speaker 3: we talk about the people who Again, I wouldn't want

482
00:25:17,280 --> 00:25:20,200
Speaker 3: to label a person food insecure, but that's the word

483
00:25:20,240 --> 00:25:23,359
Speaker 3: that's used food and security. And people are food insecure

484
00:25:24,440 --> 00:25:27,320
Speaker 3: not because there's no food available. There might not be

485
00:25:27,320 --> 00:25:30,320
Speaker 3: food available right in their neighborhood, but because they don't

486
00:25:30,359 --> 00:25:33,320
Speaker 3: have money. There's not a food problem, there's a money problem.

487
00:25:33,480 --> 00:25:35,919
Speaker 2: Wait, but there are parts of the country where it

488
00:25:36,040 --> 00:25:39,760
Speaker 2: is incredibly difficult to actually get fresh produce.

489
00:25:39,480 --> 00:25:42,480
Speaker 3: Including many neighborhoods in New York City. Absolutely, okay, And

490
00:25:42,520 --> 00:25:44,479
Speaker 3: why is that? You want to know why that is?

491
00:25:45,200 --> 00:25:50,160
Speaker 3: Why that is is more to do with the kind

492
00:25:50,200 --> 00:25:54,959
Speaker 3: of technological and policy innovations throughout the twentieth century. So

493
00:25:55,080 --> 00:25:58,359
Speaker 3: we're going back to the nineteen fifties, nineteen sixties, nineteen

494
00:25:58,440 --> 00:26:06,600
Speaker 3: seventies when the the USDA really started subsidizing farmers to

495
00:26:06,720 --> 00:26:13,640
Speaker 3: produce essentially a handful of crops, corn, soy, cotton wheat

496
00:26:14,400 --> 00:26:18,320
Speaker 3: as an example, and they were subsidizing those crops because

497
00:26:18,359 --> 00:26:21,080
Speaker 3: those are the biggest export crops that the United States has,

498
00:26:22,200 --> 00:26:26,439
Speaker 3: And because as there was kind of consolidation in the

499
00:26:26,480 --> 00:26:30,560
Speaker 3: farming sectors all across the United States, there was food

500
00:26:30,600 --> 00:26:33,960
Speaker 3: manufacturing also growing at the same time. Right, there weren't

501
00:26:34,000 --> 00:26:36,640
Speaker 3: supermarkets in the nineteen twenties because I mean there were

502
00:26:36,920 --> 00:26:40,080
Speaker 3: neighborhood stores, because there wasn't a lot of manufactured product

503
00:26:40,480 --> 00:26:43,560
Speaker 3: at the time. It was fresh or minimally what we

504
00:26:43,640 --> 00:26:47,480
Speaker 3: call minimally processed or dried like pasta, rice, etc. Things

505
00:26:47,520 --> 00:26:52,600
Speaker 3: like that. So as the agriculture sector got more industrialized,

506
00:26:52,960 --> 00:26:57,640
Speaker 3: the number of ingredients got fewer. The food manufacturers picked

507
00:26:57,720 --> 00:27:02,520
Speaker 3: up on that and started producing manufacturing what we now

508
00:27:02,560 --> 00:27:06,520
Speaker 3: call highly processed food, right, high process food turning corn

509
00:27:06,560 --> 00:27:09,760
Speaker 3: into corn syrup instead of using sugar, for example, and

510
00:27:09,880 --> 00:27:14,199
Speaker 3: lots of lots of chemical processes to add flavor, to

511
00:27:14,520 --> 00:27:18,119
Speaker 3: add durability, to add texture, whatever. And we ended up

512
00:27:18,119 --> 00:27:21,679
Speaker 3: getting a diet that didn't include a lot of fresh food,

513
00:27:22,480 --> 00:27:25,200
Speaker 3: which is subsidized by the US government. So the US

514
00:27:25,320 --> 00:27:29,800
Speaker 3: government pays commodity farmers of those crops to either grow

515
00:27:29,920 --> 00:27:33,119
Speaker 3: or not grow to the market sort of like the

516
00:27:33,160 --> 00:27:35,160
Speaker 3: market movements, the things that are happening in the market,

517
00:27:35,560 --> 00:27:40,119
Speaker 3: and the USDA does not give subsidies or any favor

518
00:27:40,160 --> 00:27:44,480
Speaker 3: at all to what they define as specialty farmers. Specialty

519
00:27:44,480 --> 00:27:48,280
Speaker 3: farmers are the people that produce fruits and vegetables. So

520
00:27:49,280 --> 00:27:54,480
Speaker 3: people ended up ended up consuming a very highly processed

521
00:27:54,520 --> 00:27:58,119
Speaker 3: diet by the nineteen sixties and into the nineteen seventies,

522
00:27:58,800 --> 00:28:02,840
Speaker 3: which resulted in the diet related illnesses that we have now,

523
00:28:02,960 --> 00:28:04,840
Speaker 3: which we could go into if you want to, because

524
00:28:04,880 --> 00:28:08,560
Speaker 3: there's a fruit and vegetable approach to diet chronic diet

525
00:28:08,600 --> 00:28:12,120
Speaker 3: related illnesses. But what the other thing that was happening,

526
00:28:12,160 --> 00:28:15,359
Speaker 3: And I mean, this is a perfect topic for you know,

527
00:28:15,400 --> 00:28:19,080
Speaker 3: for here in this building, right because it's about finance

528
00:28:19,080 --> 00:28:22,680
Speaker 3: and markets. As manufacturing jobs in New York City were

529
00:28:22,720 --> 00:28:28,159
Speaker 3: declining and more people from the South were migrating to

530
00:28:29,040 --> 00:28:36,080
Speaker 3: cities for opportunity, landlords got very nervous about having more

531
00:28:36,520 --> 00:28:40,000
Speaker 3: people from very diverse backgrounds living in their buildings, and

532
00:28:40,120 --> 00:28:42,560
Speaker 3: white people left and went to the suburbs. So it's

533
00:28:42,600 --> 00:28:45,680
Speaker 3: like everything happening at the same time. The commodification of food,

534
00:28:46,040 --> 00:28:50,200
Speaker 3: the industrialization of food, manufacturing, the decline of manufacturing in

535
00:28:50,240 --> 00:28:53,520
Speaker 3: cities like New York, which sent white people to the suburbs,

536
00:28:53,560 --> 00:28:57,680
Speaker 3: which created an influx of housing for non white people,

537
00:28:58,200 --> 00:29:02,520
Speaker 3: and supermarkets at the time or the stores that were

538
00:29:02,560 --> 00:29:05,760
Speaker 3: available basically were like, we have to sell the cheapest

539
00:29:05,800 --> 00:29:08,880
Speaker 3: possible food we can to these groups of people because

540
00:29:08,920 --> 00:29:11,760
Speaker 3: they don't have enough money, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

541
00:29:12,040 --> 00:29:15,800
Speaker 3: So there was a former New York City Commissioner, Tom Farley,

542
00:29:15,840 --> 00:29:19,680
Speaker 3: great guy. He actually was one of the first people,

543
00:29:19,720 --> 00:29:22,240
Speaker 3: first policy people in New York to basically say, we

544
00:29:22,280 --> 00:29:24,959
Speaker 3: can't call this a food desert. It's actually a food swamp.

545
00:29:25,480 --> 00:29:27,720
Speaker 3: So it's a food swamp, meaning there's tons of food,

546
00:29:28,040 --> 00:29:29,480
Speaker 3: it's just very bad quality.

547
00:29:30,720 --> 00:29:33,480
Speaker 1: I really like the way you frame it around money

548
00:29:33,480 --> 00:29:37,720
Speaker 1: and income because I mean it's intuitive as you describe it,

549
00:29:37,760 --> 00:29:40,760
Speaker 1: which is that there are plenty of rich people who

550
00:29:41,000 --> 00:29:43,280
Speaker 1: live in very you know, might live in a rural

551
00:29:43,320 --> 00:29:46,240
Speaker 1: area away from a grocery store, and they don't have

552
00:29:46,280 --> 00:29:48,920
Speaker 1: a problem with food and security. I mean, you know,

553
00:29:49,360 --> 00:29:51,600
Speaker 1: somehow they get their food. Maybe they might not have

554
00:29:51,600 --> 00:29:53,440
Speaker 1: a grocery store than a mile, but they do. It's

555
00:29:53,480 --> 00:29:56,480
Speaker 1: the people who simply do not have much income, and

556
00:29:56,600 --> 00:29:59,880
Speaker 1: no one is trying to No one is trying to

557
00:30:00,000 --> 00:30:03,040
Speaker 1: create a market for them or trying to deliver fresh produced.

558
00:30:02,880 --> 00:30:05,880
Speaker 3: But that's I don't want to say that you're incorrect

559
00:30:05,920 --> 00:30:08,560
Speaker 3: about that. I think you just don't know. Actually, there's

560
00:30:09,160 --> 00:30:12,560
Speaker 3: tons of organizations, dozens in New York City, maybe even

561
00:30:12,640 --> 00:30:15,560
Speaker 3: hundreds in New York City of organizations that are working

562
00:30:15,720 --> 00:30:20,080
Speaker 3: really really hard to get that fresh produce into these neighborhoods.

563
00:30:20,360 --> 00:30:22,680
Speaker 1: Yeah, you're totally right. I in my mind, the way

564
00:30:22,680 --> 00:30:24,040
Speaker 1: I was thinking about it is like sort of like

565
00:30:24,240 --> 00:30:28,400
Speaker 1: for profit chain grocery stores or for profit entities sort

566
00:30:28,400 --> 00:30:30,800
Speaker 1: of like seeing this as a market opportunity.

567
00:30:31,040 --> 00:30:34,560
Speaker 3: But to your point, right, Yeah, But to your point

568
00:30:34,640 --> 00:30:37,880
Speaker 3: of a wealthy person living in the suburbs or you know,

569
00:30:38,040 --> 00:30:41,960
Speaker 3: exerbs or rural if they want to get a food

570
00:30:42,280 --> 00:30:44,720
Speaker 3: item or food items that they want, they're going to

571
00:30:44,800 --> 00:30:47,200
Speaker 3: find a way to get it. And you know what,

572
00:30:47,520 --> 00:30:49,760
Speaker 3: poor people in New York City and in cities across

573
00:30:49,800 --> 00:30:52,560
Speaker 3: the United States do exactly the same thing. There was

574
00:30:52,600 --> 00:30:56,320
Speaker 3: a project many years ago where I was interviewing parents

575
00:30:56,320 --> 00:30:59,840
Speaker 3: of children that were in head start programs. The neighborhood

576
00:31:00,240 --> 00:31:04,120
Speaker 3: was East Harlem, which if we were to label neighborhoods

577
00:31:04,160 --> 00:31:06,400
Speaker 3: in New York City as food deserts, which we're trying

578
00:31:06,480 --> 00:31:10,480
Speaker 3: not to do, it would be one and kind of

579
00:31:10,480 --> 00:31:13,720
Speaker 3: like after the formal interview about how the kids were

580
00:31:13,720 --> 00:31:16,120
Speaker 3: doing in this head Star program and the food that

581
00:31:16,160 --> 00:31:18,320
Speaker 3: they were getting there and whether the parents thought that

582
00:31:18,440 --> 00:31:20,000
Speaker 3: food was good for the kids or not good for

583
00:31:20,040 --> 00:31:22,080
Speaker 3: the kids, et cetera, et cetera, I just sort of

584
00:31:22,080 --> 00:31:24,920
Speaker 3: off the cuff. I asked a group of parents of

585
00:31:25,400 --> 00:31:28,040
Speaker 3: five year olds. I said, do you know the term

586
00:31:28,080 --> 00:31:30,520
Speaker 3: food desert? And they were like, no, what are you

587
00:31:30,520 --> 00:31:33,560
Speaker 3: talking about? And I said, well, do you know that

588
00:31:33,640 --> 00:31:35,560
Speaker 3: some people would say the neighborhood that you live in

589
00:31:35,680 --> 00:31:37,560
Speaker 3: is called a food desert And they say, what does

590
00:31:37,560 --> 00:31:40,840
Speaker 3: that mean? I said, well, how it's defined is that

591
00:31:40,880 --> 00:31:44,840
Speaker 3: you live in a neighborhood where you can't get good quality,

592
00:31:44,880 --> 00:31:48,719
Speaker 3: fresh food. And they say, well, yeah, it's the truth,

593
00:31:49,280 --> 00:31:52,680
Speaker 3: but don't call my neighborhood a desert. That's really insulting

594
00:31:52,720 --> 00:31:54,360
Speaker 3: to me. And I said, well, tell me what you

595
00:31:54,400 --> 00:31:57,640
Speaker 3: do about getting food and they said, you know, wean

596
00:31:57,680 --> 00:32:00,360
Speaker 3: this was a while ago, so like before Uber Bill,

597
00:32:00,480 --> 00:32:03,400
Speaker 3: four of us will go in a taxi across the

598
00:32:03,400 --> 00:32:06,440
Speaker 3: George Washington Bridge to a supermarket in New Jersey and

599
00:32:06,520 --> 00:32:09,440
Speaker 3: stock up. Right, we will take the subway down to

600
00:32:09,520 --> 00:32:13,440
Speaker 3: Chinatown one day a week and buy buy fresh fish. So,

601
00:32:14,080 --> 00:32:17,000
Speaker 3: just like upper income people, lower income people are very

602
00:32:17,040 --> 00:32:19,880
Speaker 3: resourceful and will do the best they can to feed

603
00:32:19,920 --> 00:32:23,960
Speaker 3: their family. But what happened in that period of industrialization

604
00:32:25,000 --> 00:32:26,760
Speaker 3: is that people forgot how to cook.

605
00:32:27,720 --> 00:32:27,880
Speaker 1: Right.

606
00:32:28,000 --> 00:32:30,440
Speaker 2: This was going to be kind of my next question,

607
00:32:30,480 --> 00:32:33,680
Speaker 2: which is, Okay, so incomes are clearly a factor here,

608
00:32:33,800 --> 00:32:37,480
Speaker 2: but it feels like the other limiting factor is, especially

609
00:32:37,520 --> 00:32:40,520
Speaker 2: if you're working a low income job, probably long hours,

610
00:32:40,640 --> 00:32:43,520
Speaker 2: you might not have a lot of time to spend

611
00:32:43,600 --> 00:32:46,520
Speaker 2: either sourcing fresh produce or cooking it correct.

612
00:32:47,040 --> 00:32:49,800
Speaker 3: Nor might you have a kitchen with a good refrigerator

613
00:32:49,840 --> 00:32:50,680
Speaker 3: and a decent stove.

614
00:32:51,280 --> 00:32:51,520
Speaker 1: Right.

615
00:32:52,280 --> 00:32:56,080
Speaker 3: So, yeah, So I think what happened over maybe those

616
00:32:56,200 --> 00:33:00,200
Speaker 3: years from like the sixties or seventies until I kind

617
00:33:00,200 --> 00:33:02,320
Speaker 3: of want to say until recently, because I feel like

618
00:33:02,360 --> 00:33:04,160
Speaker 3: there's been a little bit of a tipping point. Although

619
00:33:04,160 --> 00:33:07,360
Speaker 3: there's still so much work to do, people just they

620
00:33:07,440 --> 00:33:10,800
Speaker 3: gave themselves over to what was easy and convenient and cheap.

621
00:33:11,760 --> 00:33:14,960
Speaker 2: Right, those darn TV dinners in the eighties.

622
00:33:15,680 --> 00:33:19,520
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm guilty of with myself. I'm a busy

623
00:33:20,160 --> 00:33:22,600
Speaker 1: work I have two kids. It's like sometimes, of course

624
00:33:22,720 --> 00:33:24,880
Speaker 1: it's cheap and what I can put in the air fryer.

625
00:33:25,160 --> 00:33:29,160
Speaker 3: Totally, totally. We can't be faulted for making our lives,

626
00:33:29,200 --> 00:33:31,760
Speaker 3: you know, as easy as easy as we can. The

627
00:33:31,800 --> 00:33:34,400
Speaker 3: problem is that lower income people do not have as

628
00:33:34,400 --> 00:33:37,120
Speaker 3: many options and choices as you and I might have.

629
00:33:37,320 --> 00:33:40,680
Speaker 1: For further constraints.

630
00:33:38,880 --> 00:33:44,080
Speaker 2: What what's the ideal food network landscape if you will

631
00:33:44,160 --> 00:33:46,440
Speaker 2: in a city like New York. And the reason I

632
00:33:46,480 --> 00:33:48,960
Speaker 2: ask is because you know, I've traveled a lot, I've

633
00:33:48,960 --> 00:33:51,720
Speaker 2: lived in different places. In a place like Hong Kong,

634
00:33:52,680 --> 00:33:54,880
Speaker 2: it's so easy to get fresh food. You know, on

635
00:33:54,920 --> 00:33:57,320
Speaker 2: your way back from work, you stop at the wet market,

636
00:33:57,440 --> 00:33:59,440
Speaker 2: you stock up on whatever you need for dinner, and

637
00:33:59,480 --> 00:34:01,000
Speaker 2: you do the same thing the next day. In a

638
00:34:01,040 --> 00:34:03,120
Speaker 2: lot of European cities, it's like that as well, you

639
00:34:03,200 --> 00:34:06,640
Speaker 2: buy for the meal that you were actually about to eat.

640
00:34:07,200 --> 00:34:09,279
Speaker 2: Is that what we should be aiming for or how

641
00:34:09,280 --> 00:34:10,880
Speaker 2: would you like to see it develop?

642
00:34:11,040 --> 00:34:13,680
Speaker 3: I mean in a city like New York, where everything

643
00:34:13,719 --> 00:34:15,960
Speaker 3: is at your fingertips, in a way, but everything is

644
00:34:16,000 --> 00:34:19,319
Speaker 3: also complicated logistically, right, you have to plan your whole

645
00:34:19,400 --> 00:34:21,160
Speaker 3: day and how many bags you're going to be carrying

646
00:34:21,200 --> 00:34:23,200
Speaker 3: by the end of the day, that kind of thing.

647
00:34:23,280 --> 00:34:24,719
Speaker 3: Let me just kind of back up and say, you know,

648
00:34:24,800 --> 00:34:29,560
Speaker 3: in probably starting in the nineteen twenties nineteen thirties, there

649
00:34:29,640 --> 00:34:34,440
Speaker 3: were retail produce markets all across New York City. And

650
00:34:35,080 --> 00:34:38,000
Speaker 3: the way those things got developed was because like your

651
00:34:38,000 --> 00:34:41,320
Speaker 3: guy on your corner, right, like my great grandfather driving

652
00:34:41,440 --> 00:34:44,120
Speaker 3: a buggy around the Upper East Side selling cottage, cheese

653
00:34:44,440 --> 00:34:49,560
Speaker 3: and butter. There were so much street activity, so many

654
00:34:49,600 --> 00:34:52,560
Speaker 3: people selling and buying food on the street, that it

655
00:34:52,960 --> 00:34:55,080
Speaker 3: was Mayor LaGuardia actually, so it's probably a little bit later,

656
00:34:55,120 --> 00:34:56,720
Speaker 3: because I think he was the mayor in the fifties.

657
00:34:57,440 --> 00:34:59,359
Speaker 3: He basically was like, no, we got to get all

658
00:34:59,360 --> 00:35:03,359
Speaker 3: this activity inside. So he and others built this sort

659
00:35:03,360 --> 00:35:05,839
Speaker 3: of network you mentioned the word network, this network of

660
00:35:06,000 --> 00:35:09,640
Speaker 3: retail produce markets across New York City, and then kind

661
00:35:09,640 --> 00:35:11,480
Speaker 3: of tried to force the people selling on the street

662
00:35:11,520 --> 00:35:14,440
Speaker 3: to go in those markets, which of course they resisted

663
00:35:14,760 --> 00:35:17,040
Speaker 3: because you're gonna have a lot more customers if you're

664
00:35:17,080 --> 00:35:19,840
Speaker 3: just on the street with them. Nevertheless, that kind of

665
00:35:19,880 --> 00:35:24,920
Speaker 3: that migration happened, and those markets really became the source,

666
00:35:25,040 --> 00:35:28,600
Speaker 3: the primary source of accessing fresh fruits and vegetables in

667
00:35:28,640 --> 00:35:32,560
Speaker 3: a neighborhood. And these markets exist in many, many, many,

668
00:35:32,600 --> 00:35:35,480
Speaker 3: many neighborhoods all across New York City. A lot of

669
00:35:35,520 --> 00:35:39,440
Speaker 3: those markets have closed or changed or there or they're struggling,

670
00:35:39,520 --> 00:35:42,160
Speaker 3: and there's there's but the infrastructure, for the most part

671
00:35:42,280 --> 00:35:45,200
Speaker 3: is still there and many of them are being kind

672
00:35:45,200 --> 00:35:50,359
Speaker 3: of rehabilitated and rethought to enable this access across New

673
00:35:50,440 --> 00:36:05,279
Speaker 3: York City.

674
00:36:07,400 --> 00:36:09,600
Speaker 1: Can we just go back and talk like sort of

675
00:36:09,640 --> 00:36:13,560
Speaker 1: like simple or not simple, but supply chain logistics. For

676
00:36:13,640 --> 00:36:17,120
Speaker 1: a second, New York is a dense city. It's surrounded

677
00:36:17,360 --> 00:36:21,080
Speaker 1: by suburbs, and if you're coming into the city via truck,

678
00:36:21,120 --> 00:36:23,760
Speaker 1: there's a good chance you're gonna be stuck in traffic

679
00:36:23,840 --> 00:36:27,160
Speaker 1: for a long time. I understand trucks have refrigeration, et cetera.

680
00:36:27,280 --> 00:36:30,440
Speaker 1: But like when it comes to that cold chain, whether

681
00:36:30,600 --> 00:36:34,160
Speaker 1: it's the delivery of food to the terminal and then

682
00:36:34,200 --> 00:36:36,440
Speaker 1: the pickup by the person at the van, or whether

683
00:36:36,520 --> 00:36:41,520
Speaker 1: it's the vertically integrated mega supermarkets that contract directly with

684
00:36:41,560 --> 00:36:44,560
Speaker 1: the farmers and have their distribution points outside the city,

685
00:36:44,640 --> 00:36:47,640
Speaker 1: et cetera. Is it just difficult from it? Like, you know,

686
00:36:47,640 --> 00:36:50,600
Speaker 1: if you wanted to compare New York to say, like

687
00:36:51,040 --> 00:36:54,520
Speaker 1: I used to live in Austin, Texas. It's traffic's getting

688
00:36:54,520 --> 00:36:56,880
Speaker 1: worse there, but it's not nearly as big or as

689
00:36:56,960 --> 00:36:59,920
Speaker 1: dense as crazy Like, yeah, is it just harder, it's harder.

690
00:37:00,040 --> 00:37:01,800
Speaker 1: Can you talk about like those challenges?

691
00:37:01,960 --> 00:37:04,000
Speaker 3: Yeah, I can tell, Yeah, it is. It is harder.

692
00:37:04,120 --> 00:37:07,600
Speaker 3: It is harder. And the Hunts Point Produced Terminal Market

693
00:37:08,280 --> 00:37:11,200
Speaker 3: was built in nineteen sixty seven, and that was an

694
00:37:11,200 --> 00:37:14,160
Speaker 3: effort to take all those vendors that were selling wholesale

695
00:37:14,200 --> 00:37:20,160
Speaker 3: on Washington Street and put them indoors. Yeah, and put

696
00:37:20,200 --> 00:37:21,920
Speaker 3: them in a market in U.

697
00:37:22,200 --> 00:37:26,360
Speaker 1: Is it cold there in the market Yeah, no, okay.

698
00:37:26,040 --> 00:37:29,120
Speaker 3: And it's not cold because the market is not completely

699
00:37:29,160 --> 00:37:32,600
Speaker 3: cold shame compliant, which is one of the top five

700
00:37:32,640 --> 00:37:34,960
Speaker 3: reasons why it needs to be redeveloped and why it will.

701
00:37:35,600 --> 00:37:38,480
Speaker 1: There are so there are issues.

702
00:37:39,160 --> 00:37:41,000
Speaker 3: There are issues, of course, So you're going to find

703
00:37:41,000 --> 00:37:44,399
Speaker 3: issues anywhere. That's anywhere that you're transporting and handling food.

704
00:37:45,800 --> 00:37:47,640
Speaker 3: You know, they do the best they can with the

705
00:37:47,640 --> 00:37:50,919
Speaker 3: infrastructure that they have. But the infrastructure, people like to say,

706
00:37:50,960 --> 00:37:53,640
Speaker 3: and I was only seven years old in nineteen sixty seven,

707
00:37:53,719 --> 00:37:56,760
Speaker 3: so I can't say this from firsthand experience. But people

708
00:37:56,800 --> 00:37:59,680
Speaker 3: say that as soon as the market opened it was obsolete.

709
00:38:00,120 --> 00:38:03,560
Speaker 3: Huh so and that's how many years ago, right, so

710
00:38:04,360 --> 00:38:07,719
Speaker 3: fifty six years ago? So the market?

711
00:38:08,080 --> 00:38:09,439
Speaker 1: Sorry, why why?

712
00:38:09,480 --> 00:38:09,600
Speaker 3: What?

713
00:38:09,719 --> 00:38:12,239
Speaker 1: Why was it? Absolutely? Well, what did people identify right

714
00:38:12,280 --> 00:38:13,600
Speaker 1: away that they say, you know what this is going

715
00:38:13,640 --> 00:38:13,879
Speaker 1: to be.

716
00:38:14,480 --> 00:38:17,359
Speaker 3: Just to your point, because the city, the city is

717
00:38:17,400 --> 00:38:21,080
Speaker 3: so dense, the population grew, and here you were trying

718
00:38:21,120 --> 00:38:24,600
Speaker 3: to put all of these trucks into the very few

719
00:38:24,719 --> 00:38:29,680
Speaker 3: funnels that exist, meaning the George Washington Bridge or than

720
00:38:29,760 --> 00:38:33,319
Speaker 3: now it's called the RFK Bridge or the Degan Expressway.

721
00:38:33,360 --> 00:38:36,320
Speaker 3: You're trying to get all these trucks. And that protus

722
00:38:36,440 --> 00:38:38,680
Speaker 3: was being brought in more by truck than by train.

723
00:38:39,840 --> 00:38:43,320
Speaker 3: So the usually when a market is called a terminal market,

724
00:38:44,160 --> 00:38:46,680
Speaker 3: it literally means it's the end of the line, and

725
00:38:46,719 --> 00:38:50,719
Speaker 3: it's the end of rail lines. So but rail got

726
00:38:50,840 --> 00:38:53,399
Speaker 3: less and less and trucks got more and more when

727
00:38:53,440 --> 00:38:57,200
Speaker 3: the price of gasoline went down and when buying became

728
00:38:57,239 --> 00:38:58,160
Speaker 3: more specialized.

729
00:38:59,000 --> 00:39:02,200
Speaker 2: You know, you mentioned this earlier, the rules around food

730
00:39:02,280 --> 00:39:05,479
Speaker 2: safety and regulation. Can you talk a little bit more

731
00:39:05,520 --> 00:39:08,400
Speaker 2: about how those feed into the actual network and the

732
00:39:08,480 --> 00:39:12,360
Speaker 2: logistics of moving produce, especially in New York, because I

733
00:39:12,360 --> 00:39:15,280
Speaker 2: imagine maybe New York has some different laws to other places.

734
00:39:15,640 --> 00:39:17,799
Speaker 3: New York doesn't have different laws to other places. Now,

735
00:39:18,280 --> 00:39:22,319
Speaker 3: there is a national law which actually just went into

736
00:39:22,320 --> 00:39:25,640
Speaker 3: effect a few years ago. It's called the Food Safety

737
00:39:25,760 --> 00:39:30,960
Speaker 3: Modernization Act or catchy FISMA, FISMA FISMA. That is catchy actually,

738
00:39:32,120 --> 00:39:37,080
Speaker 3: and so that became a national requirement for any kind

739
00:39:37,080 --> 00:39:42,279
Speaker 3: of perishable food to be meeting certain government FDA and

740
00:39:42,360 --> 00:39:45,839
Speaker 3: USDA standards for culting compliance. But I think to answer

741
00:39:45,880 --> 00:39:48,160
Speaker 3: your question, if I could tell a little story, please, Okay.

742
00:39:48,520 --> 00:39:51,239
Speaker 3: So I was at the Hunts Point Produce market one day,

743
00:39:51,680 --> 00:39:54,839
Speaker 3: probably in two thousand and nine. Let's say we were

744
00:39:55,120 --> 00:39:57,719
Speaker 3: actually managing a program called the New York City Green

745
00:39:57,760 --> 00:40:00,680
Speaker 3: Cart Initiative at the time, which was a whole class

746
00:40:00,719 --> 00:40:06,120
Speaker 3: of vendor licenses exclusively for selling fresh fruits and vegetables

747
00:40:06,160 --> 00:40:10,120
Speaker 3: in low income neighborhoods that didn't have supermarkets. So my

748
00:40:10,239 --> 00:40:12,279
Speaker 3: office ran that program for the first five years that

749
00:40:12,360 --> 00:40:14,799
Speaker 3: it existed, And I was at the market one day

750
00:40:14,840 --> 00:40:17,560
Speaker 3: with some of the vendors kind of teaching them how

751
00:40:17,600 --> 00:40:21,560
Speaker 3: to buy produce. And we were there when the big

752
00:40:21,560 --> 00:40:23,080
Speaker 3: truck was coming in I don't know where it was

753
00:40:23,120 --> 00:40:26,160
Speaker 3: coming in from. And the very first thing that happens

754
00:40:26,200 --> 00:40:27,960
Speaker 3: you put the you roll up the gate of the

755
00:40:28,000 --> 00:40:31,360
Speaker 3: back of a tractor trailer and there is a little

756
00:40:31,360 --> 00:40:33,960
Speaker 3: black box, just like there's a little black box in

757
00:40:34,000 --> 00:40:38,480
Speaker 3: an airplane. Right, that little black box is taking the

758
00:40:38,480 --> 00:40:41,719
Speaker 3: temperature of the produce every I don't know minute, every

759
00:40:41,719 --> 00:40:44,719
Speaker 3: three minutes. I'm not sure. It's a constant read of

760
00:40:44,760 --> 00:40:50,160
Speaker 3: temperature of the produce in that truck. Okay, And somebody

761
00:40:50,160 --> 00:40:54,160
Speaker 3: who's receiving the goods will get that black box or

762
00:40:54,200 --> 00:40:56,800
Speaker 3: the report from the black box, and they will see

763
00:40:57,080 --> 00:41:00,399
Speaker 3: has this produce maintained its temperature from all away from

764
00:41:00,400 --> 00:41:03,520
Speaker 3: where it came from, let's say California, And if it does,

765
00:41:03,600 --> 00:41:05,960
Speaker 3: then they're going to pay the price they promised. Right.

766
00:41:06,320 --> 00:41:08,920
Speaker 3: If it hasn't, they've got to start testing the food

767
00:41:08,960 --> 00:41:12,160
Speaker 3: to see if there's breakdown, if there's material breakdown of

768
00:41:12,320 --> 00:41:14,960
Speaker 3: let's say it's a tomato right happening on the inside

769
00:41:14,960 --> 00:41:17,359
Speaker 3: of the tomato, and then they'll make a decision about

770
00:41:17,480 --> 00:41:20,320
Speaker 3: whether to buy the product or how to buy the product.

771
00:41:20,440 --> 00:41:23,359
Speaker 3: And so even though there are these rules that things

772
00:41:23,440 --> 00:41:27,400
Speaker 3: must be cold chain compliant, it's a relatively recent rule.

773
00:41:27,560 --> 00:41:31,839
Speaker 3: And so now all the infrastructure needs to be upgraded

774
00:41:32,160 --> 00:41:34,400
Speaker 3: to be able to, at least on the receiving side,

775
00:41:34,719 --> 00:41:36,520
Speaker 3: do what they can to maintain the food.

776
00:41:38,640 --> 00:41:42,279
Speaker 2: I have a kind of random question, but so I

777
00:41:42,280 --> 00:41:44,600
Speaker 2: guess a lot of people might know this, but maybe

778
00:41:44,600 --> 00:41:48,560
Speaker 2: some don't. If you mix certain vegetables together, I think

779
00:41:48,560 --> 00:41:52,240
Speaker 2: the classic is, what is it onions with potatoes or something.

780
00:41:52,640 --> 00:41:56,239
Speaker 2: If you store them together, one of them emits a

781
00:41:56,280 --> 00:41:59,200
Speaker 2: chemical that causes the other one to rot. Yes, are

782
00:41:59,239 --> 00:42:02,080
Speaker 2: those the types of considerations that you have to think

783
00:42:02,120 --> 00:42:04,200
Speaker 2: about at a food market, Like, oh, you can't put

784
00:42:04,239 --> 00:42:06,640
Speaker 2: the onions next to the potatoes.

785
00:42:06,160 --> 00:42:08,600
Speaker 3: Absolutely, And I don't know if it's exactly those two products,

786
00:42:08,640 --> 00:42:11,319
Speaker 3: but yeah, I can't remember. But to go back to

787
00:42:11,360 --> 00:42:16,839
Speaker 3: our tomato example, tomato tomatoes don't need to be refrigerated

788
00:42:16,880 --> 00:42:20,800
Speaker 3: at the same the same degree of coldness as leafy greens,

789
00:42:20,840 --> 00:42:23,840
Speaker 3: for example, which really need to be at thirty nine degrees.

790
00:42:24,040 --> 00:42:26,319
Speaker 3: I think it's thirty seven or thirty nine degrees to

791
00:42:26,360 --> 00:42:29,960
Speaker 3: stay crisp. For as long as possible. Tomatoes actually can

792
00:42:30,000 --> 00:42:34,719
Speaker 3: be in a fifty degree room with a tomato ripening room,

793
00:42:34,760 --> 00:42:36,960
Speaker 3: And there are and when you go to some of

794
00:42:36,960 --> 00:42:39,960
Speaker 3: the vendors at Hunt's Point have these but more sophisticated

795
00:42:40,000 --> 00:42:43,800
Speaker 3: produce distributors like those that exist outside the market. Baldore

796
00:42:43,880 --> 00:42:46,440
Speaker 3: is a great example here in New York. They'll have

797
00:42:46,560 --> 00:42:49,520
Speaker 3: ripening rooms for tomatoes, They'll have ripening rooms for bananas,

798
00:42:49,640 --> 00:42:52,759
Speaker 3: They'll have different ripening rooms for other things. Potatoes. You

799
00:42:52,800 --> 00:42:54,919
Speaker 3: can pretty much do anything to potato and it will

800
00:42:54,960 --> 00:42:58,840
Speaker 3: still be okay. So, yes, there's a range of temperatures.

801
00:42:58,960 --> 00:43:01,319
Speaker 3: You're absolutely right, Just.

802
00:43:01,320 --> 00:43:05,080
Speaker 1: Going back to the logistics of getting produced into the city.

803
00:43:05,560 --> 00:43:08,600
Speaker 1: What about setting aside the Hunts Point and the terminal,

804
00:43:08,880 --> 00:43:11,959
Speaker 1: what about for the large grocery stores that, as you say,

805
00:43:12,040 --> 00:43:15,560
Speaker 1: completely vertically integrated. They're obviously vertically integrated New York. I

806
00:43:15,560 --> 00:43:18,279
Speaker 1: assume they're all sort of roughly the same model all

807
00:43:18,320 --> 00:43:19,240
Speaker 1: across the country.

808
00:43:19,280 --> 00:43:19,720
Speaker 3: For sure.

809
00:43:19,760 --> 00:43:22,759
Speaker 1: Do they face any additional challenges here in New York

810
00:43:22,760 --> 00:43:25,759
Speaker 1: that you wouldn't see in a smaller city or in

811
00:43:25,760 --> 00:43:26,760
Speaker 1: a less dense area.

812
00:43:26,800 --> 00:43:30,040
Speaker 3: Well, yeah, I mean, as I mentioned earlier, the distribution

813
00:43:30,239 --> 00:43:34,319
Speaker 3: centers for four or five supermarket chains that feed New

814
00:43:34,400 --> 00:43:38,480
Speaker 3: York are located in Cheshire, Connecticut. Okay, so if you're growing,

815
00:43:38,520 --> 00:43:41,279
Speaker 3: if you're shipping that lettuce or those tomatoes from California,

816
00:43:41,719 --> 00:43:44,120
Speaker 3: it's going to go to Cheshire, Connecticut, which is, you know,

817
00:43:44,160 --> 00:43:46,200
Speaker 3: an hour away, maybe an hour and a half away,

818
00:43:46,320 --> 00:43:49,400
Speaker 3: but it's going beyond New York. Then it's going to

819
00:43:49,480 --> 00:43:51,400
Speaker 3: sit there, and then it's going to come to New

820
00:43:51,480 --> 00:43:55,239
Speaker 3: York to a supermarket, to a Whole Foods or some

821
00:43:55,280 --> 00:43:58,160
Speaker 3: of the other supermarkets. So it's already like a couple

822
00:43:58,200 --> 00:43:58,800
Speaker 3: more days.

823
00:44:00,280 --> 00:44:02,120
Speaker 2: I just want to go back to one thing you

824
00:44:02,160 --> 00:44:03,719
Speaker 2: said when I asked about what are the sort of

825
00:44:03,760 --> 00:44:07,760
Speaker 2: hot topics of debate in food network land at the moment,

826
00:44:07,920 --> 00:44:12,400
Speaker 2: and the first pick was climate change. At some point,

827
00:44:12,719 --> 00:44:17,520
Speaker 2: are the complicated logistics of bringing fresh produce into New

828
00:44:17,600 --> 00:44:23,160
Speaker 2: York going to be complicated or perhaps even untenable in

829
00:44:23,239 --> 00:44:27,239
Speaker 2: an age of weather related, climate related disruptions?

830
00:44:27,440 --> 00:44:30,240
Speaker 3: Right, So, there's a couple interesting things that are happening

831
00:44:30,239 --> 00:44:32,880
Speaker 3: in the food system right now relative to that. On

832
00:44:32,920 --> 00:44:38,040
Speaker 3: a very macro scale, there are large organizations, usually agricultural

833
00:44:38,280 --> 00:44:42,200
Speaker 3: Those organizations, along with some nonprofit organizations that do scientific

834
00:44:42,239 --> 00:44:49,400
Speaker 3: research and understand sustainability. Are working on developing drought resistant,

835
00:44:49,640 --> 00:44:54,880
Speaker 3: rain resistant, heat resistant crops so that produce still can

836
00:44:54,960 --> 00:44:57,040
Speaker 3: be grown in a variety of places and sent to

837
00:44:57,160 --> 00:44:59,680
Speaker 3: a city like New York. That's kind of one very

838
00:44:59,760 --> 00:45:04,240
Speaker 3: mac level on another kind of macro level. In some ways,

839
00:45:04,560 --> 00:45:09,759
Speaker 3: climate change further gives a rational might be a little

840
00:45:09,760 --> 00:45:12,600
Speaker 3: bit hard to kind of put together, but maybe we can,

841
00:45:12,800 --> 00:45:15,600
Speaker 3: the three of us can work it out right for

842
00:45:16,040 --> 00:45:20,960
Speaker 3: more regional produce production and distribution. So going back to

843
00:45:21,000 --> 00:45:24,440
Speaker 3: that moment in time in the middle of the twentieth

844
00:45:24,440 --> 00:45:28,040
Speaker 3: century that I painted earlier, as soon as we could

845
00:45:28,080 --> 00:45:30,040
Speaker 3: get produce from really far away. I'll get back to

846
00:45:30,120 --> 00:45:31,640
Speaker 3: the climate in a second. As soon as we could

847
00:45:31,680 --> 00:45:34,600
Speaker 3: get produce from really far away, we started doing that

848
00:45:34,640 --> 00:45:39,120
Speaker 3: because those farmers could produce more quantity, have more consistency.

849
00:45:39,160 --> 00:45:42,280
Speaker 3: They were invested in by the big by big food

850
00:45:42,280 --> 00:45:45,719
Speaker 3: companies and the regional farmers. Let's say around here in

851
00:45:45,760 --> 00:45:48,160
Speaker 3: New York City. The first let's take the fifty miles

852
00:45:48,160 --> 00:45:50,000
Speaker 3: and one hundred and one hundred and fifty miles around

853
00:45:50,040 --> 00:45:53,360
Speaker 3: New York City, which is generally the distance considered for

854
00:45:53,440 --> 00:45:56,040
Speaker 3: local food is either one hundred and fifty miles or

855
00:45:56,080 --> 00:46:00,000
Speaker 3: a day's drive. They're two definitions. There's no technical deface,

856
00:46:00,320 --> 00:46:01,800
Speaker 3: but those are the two that are kind of floated

857
00:46:01,840 --> 00:46:05,560
Speaker 3: and used the most. Those farmers that were producing the

858
00:46:05,640 --> 00:46:10,160
Speaker 3: specialty crops, right the potatoes, the carrots, the onions, but

859
00:46:10,239 --> 00:46:16,279
Speaker 3: more importantly the greens, the broccolis, the spinach, the whatever,

860
00:46:16,440 --> 00:46:20,960
Speaker 3: the bound the cornucopia of produce products. Those farmers were

861
00:46:21,440 --> 00:46:24,960
Speaker 3: in effect in competition with farmers on the West Coast

862
00:46:24,960 --> 00:46:29,440
Speaker 3: who were being invested in MY companies and places like hunt.

863
00:46:29,520 --> 00:46:32,359
Speaker 3: The Hunts Point market wanted to only deal with the

864
00:46:32,400 --> 00:46:36,120
Speaker 3: big guys because they could contract ahead, they could plan,

865
00:46:36,200 --> 00:46:37,960
Speaker 3: they knew what they were going to get, and there

866
00:46:38,000 --> 00:46:41,200
Speaker 3: was a year round supply in lieu of contracting with

867
00:46:41,239 --> 00:46:43,680
Speaker 3: the regional guys for which there was only maybe a

868
00:46:43,760 --> 00:46:47,400
Speaker 3: few months supply of any one product. What climate change

869
00:46:47,600 --> 00:46:51,720
Speaker 3: is doing is first of all, making people and making

870
00:46:51,760 --> 00:46:55,720
Speaker 3: people understand a little bit more the seasonality of things

871
00:46:55,760 --> 00:46:58,759
Speaker 3: and appreciating that great tomato when it's in season, and

872
00:46:58,800 --> 00:47:01,160
Speaker 3: if it gets too hot next time, your tomatoes might

873
00:47:01,200 --> 00:47:02,160
Speaker 3: not grow. Right.

874
00:47:02,239 --> 00:47:05,040
Speaker 2: I mean, last summer in Connecticut we had drought, and

875
00:47:05,080 --> 00:47:07,719
Speaker 2: that was a terrible, terrible year. For my tomatoes.

876
00:47:07,840 --> 00:47:10,000
Speaker 3: Yeah, this year on Long Island, it's been raining like

877
00:47:10,080 --> 00:47:12,560
Speaker 3: crazy and it's the middle of August and we're only

878
00:47:12,640 --> 00:47:15,239
Speaker 3: seeing our first good tomatoes. So every year is a

879
00:47:15,280 --> 00:47:19,000
Speaker 3: little bit like a crapshoot. Whereas in more controlled environments

880
00:47:19,040 --> 00:47:22,520
Speaker 3: and controlled by pesticides, controlled by irrigation, etc. You don't

881
00:47:22,520 --> 00:47:26,040
Speaker 3: have as much for variables, except now you do. Right

882
00:47:26,480 --> 00:47:29,719
Speaker 3: when they had those terrible floods out in Monterey on

883
00:47:29,760 --> 00:47:32,960
Speaker 3: the West coast between Santa Cruz and Monterey last spring,

884
00:47:33,560 --> 00:47:36,839
Speaker 3: it wiped out the entire strawberry crop. So I don't

885
00:47:36,840 --> 00:47:40,240
Speaker 3: really eat strawberries that frequently, especially ones that are brought

886
00:47:40,239 --> 00:47:42,680
Speaker 3: in from far away, but they were just not on

887
00:47:42,719 --> 00:47:47,480
Speaker 3: the shelves. So I also think COVID made people understand

888
00:47:48,360 --> 00:47:51,600
Speaker 3: the fragility of our food system, and that's why I

889
00:47:51,600 --> 00:47:56,600
Speaker 3: think there's an opening for a general public growing awareness

890
00:47:56,680 --> 00:47:59,600
Speaker 3: of appreciating the food that they can get, and that

891
00:47:59,680 --> 00:48:03,040
Speaker 3: will help with seasonality. Right if you accept I can't

892
00:48:03,040 --> 00:48:06,160
Speaker 3: get that great that tomato that I love all year long,

893
00:48:06,200 --> 00:48:07,960
Speaker 3: but I can get it in July and August when

894
00:48:07,960 --> 00:48:11,040
Speaker 3: it's great. I think COVID kind of broke down some

895
00:48:11,080 --> 00:48:14,640
Speaker 3: of our expectations about consistent supply, which is good for

896
00:48:14,719 --> 00:48:16,080
Speaker 3: regional food tracy.

897
00:48:16,160 --> 00:48:18,040
Speaker 1: You know, where they don't have to worry about flooding

898
00:48:18,120 --> 00:48:23,440
Speaker 1: risk for agriculture. Where Arizona it's like, we got to

899
00:48:23,520 --> 00:48:26,960
Speaker 1: keep growing produce in the Arizona Desert, no surprise of floods.

900
00:48:27,160 --> 00:48:29,600
Speaker 2: You and Arizona, Joe just go no.

901
00:48:30,000 --> 00:48:32,319
Speaker 3: But Joe, you know the problem with Yeah, we've done,

902
00:48:32,360 --> 00:48:33,120
Speaker 3: we've done, We've done.

903
00:48:33,480 --> 00:48:37,399
Speaker 1: We've done several episodes on a water Yeah water.

904
00:48:38,480 --> 00:48:40,440
Speaker 2: Wait, but can I can I go back to the

905
00:48:40,480 --> 00:48:44,400
Speaker 2: agricultural policy issue that you described earlier at this idea

906
00:48:44,400 --> 00:48:49,799
Speaker 2: that we subsidized you know, exportable crops like soybeans and

907
00:48:49,880 --> 00:48:55,600
Speaker 2: corn over maybe fresh produce producers. Could that change in

908
00:48:55,640 --> 00:48:58,560
Speaker 2: an era of climate change? Is their political appetite or

909
00:48:58,600 --> 00:49:00,759
Speaker 2: will to actually reconc some of that?

910
00:49:00,960 --> 00:49:05,160
Speaker 3: You know there there is I mean I worked on

911
00:49:05,400 --> 00:49:08,720
Speaker 3: a project exactly around this question. We finished that project

912
00:49:08,719 --> 00:49:12,279
Speaker 3: in twenty eighteen. I think looking at a region called

913
00:49:12,280 --> 00:49:16,040
Speaker 3: the Mid South Delta, which is about ninety counties that

914
00:49:16,120 --> 00:49:19,480
Speaker 3: span that goes across five states, so it's along the

915
00:49:19,520 --> 00:49:22,680
Speaker 3: Mississippi River, so it's not the Delta like in Louisiana.

916
00:49:22,760 --> 00:49:28,239
Speaker 3: But it's the Mid South Delta. So it was Tennessee, Tennessee, Arkansas, Missouri, Kentucky,

917
00:49:28,440 --> 00:49:32,000
Speaker 3: and a little bit of Mississippi. And in that region,

918
00:49:32,160 --> 00:49:40,200
Speaker 3: seventy six percent of the crops are just four products corn, soy, cotton,

919
00:49:40,880 --> 00:49:45,080
Speaker 3: and wheat. No rice, sorry, corn, soy, cotton, and rice.

920
00:49:45,719 --> 00:49:49,440
Speaker 3: And what was happening or what's still happening, but the

921
00:49:49,520 --> 00:49:52,479
Speaker 3: investments are starting to like maybe make a turn there.

922
00:49:53,120 --> 00:49:55,840
Speaker 3: What's been happening in that region is because it's a

923
00:49:55,880 --> 00:49:59,279
Speaker 3: wet region and because ninety percent of the product is

924
00:49:59,440 --> 00:50:01,560
Speaker 3: put on a bar large and shipped out of the country,

925
00:50:01,800 --> 00:50:04,200
Speaker 3: there was no way to gain value for that product

926
00:50:04,200 --> 00:50:07,320
Speaker 3: for the farmers. And when you look at, for example,

927
00:50:07,360 --> 00:50:11,640
Speaker 3: deforestation in Brazil to produce crops like soy, when you

928
00:50:11,680 --> 00:50:14,600
Speaker 3: look at rice, when the US is a huge rice producer,

929
00:50:14,800 --> 00:50:17,720
Speaker 3: but you see climate impacting those things. In a generation

930
00:50:17,800 --> 00:50:20,040
Speaker 3: and a half, three of those four crops won't be

931
00:50:20,080 --> 00:50:22,880
Speaker 3: able to be produced in that region, which is seventy

932
00:50:22,920 --> 00:50:28,160
Speaker 3: six percent of their of the receipts. So yes, so

933
00:50:28,680 --> 00:50:30,560
Speaker 3: there are efforts to say, well, what else can we

934
00:50:30,600 --> 00:50:33,160
Speaker 3: grow there? And in a region like the Mid South Delta,

935
00:50:33,200 --> 00:50:36,560
Speaker 3: for example, that used to grow lots of watermelon and cucumbers,

936
00:50:36,760 --> 00:50:40,879
Speaker 3: things that actually require water, which they have, but which

937
00:50:40,960 --> 00:50:46,080
Speaker 3: lost their markets to the West when that whole thing

938
00:50:46,160 --> 00:50:48,400
Speaker 3: was happening. That we've already talked about a couple of times.

939
00:50:48,760 --> 00:50:52,800
Speaker 1: I have one small question and then one regular question.

940
00:50:52,920 --> 00:50:55,720
Speaker 1: I know, we just have a couple minutes left. Farmers' markets.

941
00:50:55,760 --> 00:50:57,319
Speaker 1: You mentioned them. I think you said they're about one

942
00:50:57,360 --> 00:50:58,520
Speaker 1: hundred in New York City.

943
00:50:58,680 --> 00:51:00,520
Speaker 3: I wish I had this precise about this.

944
00:51:01,080 --> 00:51:03,359
Speaker 1: Yeah, we talked about the big grocery stores. We talked

945
00:51:03,360 --> 00:51:05,360
Speaker 1: about maybe the more midsize where they get their produce

946
00:51:05,400 --> 00:51:07,640
Speaker 1: at the terminal. You described how the produce got into

947
00:51:07,680 --> 00:51:09,879
Speaker 1: the farmer's market, But how big of a role are

948
00:51:09,880 --> 00:51:13,360
Speaker 1: they playing in the sort of the diet of New Yorkers.

949
00:51:13,800 --> 00:51:17,640
Speaker 3: Well, an increasing percentage, right. I think when we first spoke,

950
00:51:17,680 --> 00:51:20,200
Speaker 3: I told you about this wholesale farmers market, the project

951
00:51:20,200 --> 00:51:22,080
Speaker 3: I've been working on for a long time, and it's

952
00:51:22,120 --> 00:51:25,120
Speaker 3: going to be called the New York Regional Food Hub,

953
00:51:25,239 --> 00:51:27,800
Speaker 3: and it's going to be operated by Grow NYC, which

954
00:51:27,840 --> 00:51:30,839
Speaker 3: is an operator of farmers markets here in New York City.

955
00:51:30,840 --> 00:51:33,160
Speaker 3: I think they operate sixty or seventy maybe a few

956
00:51:33,160 --> 00:51:37,040
Speaker 3: more farmers markets, what farmers' markets, what farmers were experiencing,

957
00:51:37,200 --> 00:51:40,560
Speaker 3: would be chefs coming to the markets and saying, you know,

958
00:51:41,080 --> 00:51:43,399
Speaker 3: I want to buy all the tomatoes you have right

959
00:51:43,880 --> 00:51:46,799
Speaker 3: or or a super a local supermarket would come and

960
00:51:46,840 --> 00:51:48,759
Speaker 3: say I want to buy all of those blackberries that

961
00:51:48,800 --> 00:51:51,560
Speaker 3: you have. And this was happening for years. It started

962
00:51:51,640 --> 00:51:54,160
Speaker 3: kind of in the in the eighties and into the nineties,

963
00:51:54,200 --> 00:51:56,080
Speaker 3: and then you know, by the end of the nineties,

964
00:51:56,520 --> 00:51:59,000
Speaker 3: people at the New York State Department of Agriculture were

965
00:51:59,040 --> 00:52:02,600
Speaker 3: realizing this is unsustainable and not really the best way

966
00:52:02,600 --> 00:52:05,880
Speaker 3: to transper produce anyway. We need a wholesale facility to

967
00:52:06,000 --> 00:52:11,080
Speaker 3: focus on this local stuff. So it's very difficult to

968
00:52:11,200 --> 00:52:16,520
Speaker 3: quantify exactly how much local produce is in the system

969
00:52:16,600 --> 00:52:18,839
Speaker 3: at any one time. But what I can tell you

970
00:52:19,239 --> 00:52:22,640
Speaker 3: is that it's grown from being something really minuscule to

971
00:52:23,239 --> 00:52:26,880
Speaker 3: something that is more quantifiable. So just for an example,

972
00:52:27,400 --> 00:52:31,919
Speaker 3: in two thousand and four, what we quantified was that

973
00:52:32,160 --> 00:52:37,400
Speaker 3: there was a two hundred million dollar demand for local

974
00:52:37,440 --> 00:52:42,080
Speaker 3: food among restaurants and retailers and distributors, and there was

975
00:52:42,200 --> 00:52:45,440
Speaker 3: just ten percent of that available in the marketplace. But

976
00:52:45,680 --> 00:52:49,840
Speaker 3: local farmers and local farms have there's been a revival

977
00:52:49,960 --> 00:52:53,680
Speaker 3: and they are starting to meet that much greater demand

978
00:52:54,040 --> 00:52:57,080
Speaker 3: because people and including businesses are willing to pay a

979
00:52:57,080 --> 00:52:59,839
Speaker 3: little bit more and to understand the seasonality.

980
00:53:00,000 --> 00:53:02,799
Speaker 1: So final question, and I don't know, maybe this isn't

981
00:53:02,800 --> 00:53:05,359
Speaker 1: even I'm going to frame this is a hypothetical question.

982
00:53:05,400 --> 00:53:06,640
Speaker 1: But I know you've worked with a watch of people,

983
00:53:06,719 --> 00:53:09,480
Speaker 1: so maybe it's not hypothetical. But our mayor in New

984
00:53:09,560 --> 00:53:13,640
Speaker 1: York City is a fan of produce generally supposedly he's

985
00:53:13,640 --> 00:53:17,319
Speaker 1: a vegan, or he's claimed to be multiple times. If

986
00:53:17,320 --> 00:53:20,080
Speaker 1: he calls you up tomorrow, maybe and again maybe he

987
00:53:20,120 --> 00:53:21,800
Speaker 1: has or maybe someone you've worked so, but like he

988
00:53:21,880 --> 00:53:24,319
Speaker 1: calls and says, what are the three big things that

989
00:53:24,360 --> 00:53:27,160
Speaker 1: we should focus on to approve the produce supply chain

990
00:53:27,320 --> 00:53:28,439
Speaker 1: in New York City? What do you say?

991
00:53:28,560 --> 00:53:28,680
Speaker 2: Right?

992
00:53:28,719 --> 00:53:30,840
Speaker 3: Well, I haven't spoken to the mayor directly, but I

993
00:53:30,920 --> 00:53:33,240
Speaker 3: do work for the Mayor's Office of Food Policy.

994
00:53:33,239 --> 00:53:35,960
Speaker 1: Okay, there you go, So this is not hypothetic.

995
00:53:36,080 --> 00:53:38,800
Speaker 3: No, it's not hypothetical. I would say the three things

996
00:53:38,880 --> 00:53:42,239
Speaker 3: that the city is focusing on right now is the

997
00:53:42,239 --> 00:53:46,240
Speaker 3: rebuild of the Hunts Point produce terminal market because twenty

998
00:53:46,320 --> 00:53:49,920
Speaker 3: years ago it distributed sixty percent of the city's produce

999
00:53:49,960 --> 00:53:51,960
Speaker 3: and now it's a little bit, it's more like twenty

1000
00:53:52,040 --> 00:53:55,719
Speaker 3: or twenty five percent. That piece of infrastructure is critical

1001
00:53:56,120 --> 00:54:00,600
Speaker 3: for maintaining competition in the marketplace and for enabling accessed

1002
00:54:00,760 --> 00:54:04,640
Speaker 3: for fruits and vegetables across the diversity of outlets that

1003
00:54:04,680 --> 00:54:05,200
Speaker 3: we have in.

1004
00:54:05,080 --> 00:54:07,600
Speaker 1: New York City. Right, So without it, we would really

1005
00:54:07,600 --> 00:54:09,160
Speaker 1: just be at the whim of the big st Right.

1006
00:54:09,840 --> 00:54:11,799
Speaker 3: That the other thing that the city is focusing on

1007
00:54:12,000 --> 00:54:16,480
Speaker 3: there is this policy effort called the Good Food Purchasing Initiative,

1008
00:54:16,960 --> 00:54:19,759
Speaker 3: and the Good Food Purchasing Program has this list of

1009
00:54:19,800 --> 00:54:26,120
Speaker 3: criteria of what sustainable healthy food is and the New

1010
00:54:26,200 --> 00:54:28,560
Speaker 3: York City has signed on for all of the public

1011
00:54:28,600 --> 00:54:33,719
Speaker 3: institutions to participate in this Good Food Purchasing Program, which

1012
00:54:33,760 --> 00:54:37,480
Speaker 3: is creating criteria for not only where product is created

1013
00:54:37,520 --> 00:54:41,400
Speaker 3: more local product, for example, but also how it's produced

1014
00:54:41,600 --> 00:54:45,280
Speaker 3: in terms of an equity perspective, the sustainability of that product,

1015
00:54:45,320 --> 00:54:47,839
Speaker 3: the healthfulness of it, etc. So I would say that's

1016
00:54:47,880 --> 00:54:51,960
Speaker 3: the second thing, and the third thing. I think the

1017
00:54:52,000 --> 00:54:54,719
Speaker 3: third thing is really related to the So I guess

1018
00:54:54,760 --> 00:54:58,440
Speaker 3: it's infrastructure access and overall sustainability.

1019
00:54:58,800 --> 00:55:01,040
Speaker 1: Just on the Hunts point of the one thing you

1020
00:55:01,080 --> 00:55:03,879
Speaker 1: mentioned is that it's not that cold. What else sort

1021
00:55:03,880 --> 00:55:04,879
Speaker 1: of needs to be done?

1022
00:55:05,000 --> 00:55:08,120
Speaker 3: Yeah, there, I mean there's a lot. The biggest issue,

1023
00:55:08,480 --> 00:55:11,200
Speaker 3: the biggest issue at Hunt's point right now are that

1024
00:55:11,280 --> 00:55:16,000
Speaker 3: there are hundreds of tractor trailers that park and run

1025
00:55:16,280 --> 00:55:21,680
Speaker 3: their diesel trucks all day to keep produce cold in

1026
00:55:21,719 --> 00:55:24,840
Speaker 3: them because there's not enough space in the market itself.

1027
00:55:25,400 --> 00:55:29,120
Speaker 3: So that's not only a cold chain compliance issue and

1028
00:55:29,719 --> 00:55:33,000
Speaker 3: ease of merchandising and selling and all of that, but

1029
00:55:33,040 --> 00:55:36,479
Speaker 3: it's a major environmental issue that's responsible for a lot

1030
00:55:36,480 --> 00:55:40,000
Speaker 3: of the asthma and other bronchial related illnesses in the bronx.

1031
00:55:40,560 --> 00:55:45,960
Speaker 3: So that's one thing. The other thing is we need

1032
00:55:46,040 --> 00:55:51,640
Speaker 3: to have a facility that is operated with green energy

1033
00:55:52,200 --> 00:55:56,600
Speaker 3: that maybe produces food on the roof itself, maybe and

1034
00:55:56,640 --> 00:56:00,400
Speaker 3: that also has a greater mechanism. And the Hunts point

1035
00:55:59,760 --> 00:56:03,080
Speaker 3: produce terminal market work does a lot on this, but

1036
00:56:03,120 --> 00:56:06,520
Speaker 3: it needs to be more that creates a better system

1037
00:56:06,600 --> 00:56:10,160
Speaker 3: for what's called the rescuing of food and the redistribution

1038
00:56:10,280 --> 00:56:14,319
Speaker 3: of food that is not being sold to charitable organizations.

1039
00:56:15,160 --> 00:56:17,680
Speaker 1: Karen Carr. Thank you so much. I learned so much

1040
00:56:17,680 --> 00:56:19,799
Speaker 1: about how we get our produce. Really appreciate you coming

1041
00:56:19,840 --> 00:56:21,200
Speaker 1: on odline my pleasure.

1042
00:56:21,400 --> 00:56:22,440
Speaker 2: Yeah, that was fascinating.

1043
00:56:22,560 --> 00:56:38,520
Speaker 1: Yeah, thank you, Tracy. I'm still just mostly gonna get

1044
00:56:38,520 --> 00:56:39,720
Speaker 1: my tomatoes from your garden.

1045
00:56:40,400 --> 00:56:42,280
Speaker 2: That's your supply chain solution.

1046
00:56:42,400 --> 00:56:42,600
Speaker 1: Here.

1047
00:56:42,760 --> 00:56:45,319
Speaker 2: I might have bad news for you, Joe. I don't

1048
00:56:45,320 --> 00:56:46,880
Speaker 2: have that many tomatoes.

1049
00:56:46,400 --> 00:56:47,879
Speaker 1: Okay, there's always so many.

1050
00:56:48,000 --> 00:56:51,239
Speaker 2: Some of them are splitting too, because you know, we

1051
00:56:51,360 --> 00:56:53,400
Speaker 2: mentioned there's been a lot of rain this summer, so

1052
00:56:53,480 --> 00:56:56,640
Speaker 2: last year was drought. This summer is just torrential rain

1053
00:56:56,800 --> 00:56:59,319
Speaker 2: in the Northeast and not that much sun. Actually, so

1054
00:56:59,360 --> 00:57:01,120
Speaker 2: a lot of my tomato are also splitting.

1055
00:57:01,680 --> 00:57:04,319
Speaker 1: But I did find that conversation really fascinating. I was

1056
00:57:04,360 --> 00:57:07,239
Speaker 1: particularly interested in that point at the end that like,

1057
00:57:07,560 --> 00:57:10,840
Speaker 1: if you didn't have the terminal and that it's shrunk,

1058
00:57:10,920 --> 00:57:13,400
Speaker 1: then that really would create like the sort of market

1059
00:57:13,480 --> 00:57:17,080
Speaker 1: structure competition issues for the New York City market since

1060
00:57:17,120 --> 00:57:21,320
Speaker 1: obviously not every vendor can have their own vertically integrated

1061
00:57:21,360 --> 00:57:22,480
Speaker 1: supply chain for produce.

1062
00:57:22,600 --> 00:57:24,640
Speaker 2: Yeah, I thought that was really interesting. The other thing

1063
00:57:24,640 --> 00:57:28,040
Speaker 2: that I found fascinating was, I guess my outdated use

1064
00:57:28,120 --> 00:57:31,200
Speaker 2: of the term food desert, but also the discussion of

1065
00:57:31,240 --> 00:57:35,240
Speaker 2: some of the agricultural policy choices, and I guess also

1066
00:57:35,360 --> 00:57:40,680
Speaker 2: the corporate decisions that kind of went into creating that outcome.

1067
00:57:40,720 --> 00:57:42,480
Speaker 2: And I guess the question is, you know, as we

1068
00:57:42,640 --> 00:57:46,680
Speaker 2: become more cognizant of these issues, and as climate change

1069
00:57:46,840 --> 00:57:51,160
Speaker 2: becomes a bigger factor affecting the food supply chain, whether

1070
00:57:51,240 --> 00:57:54,000
Speaker 2: or not some of those policies start to be reconsidered.

1071
00:57:54,360 --> 00:57:56,200
Speaker 1: Yeah. Now, totally fascinating conversation.

1072
00:57:56,280 --> 00:57:57,600
Speaker 2: And we got to do I guess we got to

1073
00:57:57,640 --> 00:57:59,040
Speaker 2: take a trip out to the terminal.

1074
00:57:59,400 --> 00:58:02,840
Speaker 1: We do when the farmers market is particularly when the

1075
00:58:02,880 --> 00:58:05,480
Speaker 1: wholesale farmers market opens. Yeah, the regional food hub.

1076
00:58:05,480 --> 00:58:08,440
Speaker 2: All right, Adlots outing at two am in the morning.

1077
00:58:08,520 --> 00:58:09,160
Speaker 2: It'll be fun.

1078
00:58:09,520 --> 00:58:09,960
Speaker 1: Let's do it.

1079
00:58:10,000 --> 00:58:10,720
Speaker 2: Shall we leave it there?

1080
00:58:10,800 --> 00:58:11,520
Speaker 1: Let's leave it there.

1081
00:58:11,680 --> 00:58:14,880
Speaker 2: This has been another episode of the Oddlots podcast. I'm

1082
00:58:14,880 --> 00:58:17,720
Speaker 2: Tracy Alloway. You can follow me at Tracy Alloway.

1083
00:58:18,000 --> 00:58:21,280
Speaker 1: You can follow me at the Stalwart. Follow our producers

1084
00:58:21,320 --> 00:58:25,760
Speaker 1: Carmen Rodriguez at Carmen Arman and dash Ol Bennett at dashbot,

1085
00:58:26,000 --> 00:58:28,640
Speaker 1: and check out all of the Bloomberg podcasts under the

1086
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Speaker 1: handle at podcasts and for more odd loots content, go

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Speaker 1: to Bloomberg dot com slash odd Lots, where we have transcripts.

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Speaker 1: Tracy and I blog and publish a newsletter every Friday.

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Speaker 1: And for more go to our discord Discord dot gg

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Speaker 1: slash odd lots Lots of supply chain talk. In fact,

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Speaker 1: this episode came out of request someone wanted to learn

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Speaker 1: more about the cold chain et cetera, and so I

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Speaker 1: was like, I got on. Then that's how he found Karen.

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Speaker 1: So check it out Chat twenty four to seven with

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Speaker 1: fellow od loots listeners.

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Speaker 2: And if you enjoy all blog, if you appreciate our

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Speaker 2: discussions of cold chain storage, then please leave us a

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Speaker 2: positive review on your favorite podcast platform. Thanks for listening.