Engaging the Supply Chain from Farm-to-Table

Restaurants are just one part of our food system. As thousands of restaurants have shut down across New York City, restaurant owners are scrambling to cancel ingredient deliveries and procurement contracts, multiplying the impacts of COVID-19 along the food supply chain.

A Congressional Research Service report estimates nearly $40 billion in COVID-19-related agriculture losses as of early May. While the USDA has introduced the Coronavirus Food Assistance Program (CFAP) to provide reimbursements for farmers, Civil Eats reports that many small and medium-sized farms will not reap the benefits. CFAP is disadvantageous for smaller-scale farms that rely on wholesale accounts -- such as those with restaurants -- and direct-to-consumer sales, because the program does not reimburse for lost revenue. Instead, it uses the USDA’s wholesale commodity prices to compensate for lost sales volume and commodity price declines. 

Feed the Frontlines NYC has begun conducting outreach to local and regional farmers that have seen significant disruption in business due to the pandemic. Hearing stories of how farmers have had to dump thousands of pounds of produce and dairy, we worked with The River Fund to source, store, and distribute everything from lettuce and spinach to cheese and steelhead trout to our restaurant partners and individual families here in New York City. Thank you to our farm partners - Farmlink, Crown Fish Caves, Nettle Meadow Farms, Satur Farms, and Hudson Valley Fisheries - for supporting our restaurants with wonderful ingredients. 

To learn more about our work with farms and how to become an in-kind donor or partner, please email edith@feedthefrontlinesnyc.org.

To learn more about volunteer opportunities in farm outreach, please email stephanie@feedthefrontlinesnyc.org.