Healthy Bodegas Initiative To Increase Fresh Food Access In NYC

While New York City may have an abundance of resources for its residents, one thing it lacks is fresh, healthy food in its bodegas, those convenient, round-the-clock shops. To rectify this, city officials started the Healthy Bodegas Initiative a few years ago to increase access to fresh food and improve health of their citizens through its bodegas, for which it teamed up with several bodegas and local organizations.

One such company which is actively participating in this initiative is Red Jacket Orchards, a family-operated fruit farm in upstate New York. The farm has initiated a Kickstarter campaign aimed at helping bodegas in under-served neighborhoods to sell healthy local food in their communities. Not Eating Out In NY, a popular NY-based blog published an interview with Justone Bossert of Red Jacket Orchards.

Some excerpts from the interview:

How did you get involved with the Healthy Bodegas Initiative?

JB: We were contacted by Michael Hurwitz of Greenmarket and Donya Williams of the NYC Dept. of Health about the city’s Healthy Bodegas Initiative. This program had made some great progress reaching out to Bodegas and getting people interested in selling healthy food, but did not have anyway to get it to them. That is where we come in. We are one of the few farms that not only grow food, but also distribute it. It is part of our mission to increase the availability of great tasting local fruit and having our own trucks allows us to take on the gaps in the existing food system.

What do you think the biggest challenges are going to be with selling your product in these bodegas?

JB: The biggest challenge is that the entire food system is stacked in favor of the least healthy foods. Turning that around is going to take a long time, but the first steps are simple: get fresh local food to the places where people shop, handle it in such a way to ensure its quality, and let people know it is there and why it is different. The good food movement has succeeded because fresh picked local food tastes great. Once people get access to it and try it they don’t want to eat anything else.

Healthy Bodegas Initiative

Not Eating Out In New York: “Help Healthy Bodega Initiative & Red Jacket Orchard Bring Local Produce to Bodegas”

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