For those with the means, there are many ways to grab a bite in New York City, from bodegas and halal carts to Michelin-starred restaurants to farmers’ markets. As soaring food prices make it harder to put food on the table, we need just as many ways to help New Yorkers afford a nutritious meal.
Grocery stores have been the primary place families went for food, while pantries, community kitchens, and other emergency food providers served as temporary stopgaps. The affordability crisis flipped that script.
Food costs in the metropolitan area rose by 56% between 2013 and 2023, outpacing the national increase of 46%. While prices skyrocketed, wages failed to keep up, and new federal work requirements pushed 22,000 city residents off the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) meant to close the gap. Since 2019, visits to city food pantries have surged 82% as working families, older adults, immigrants, and others increasingly turned to emergency food providers for groceries.
To face this crisis, NYC is rethinking how New Yorkers access affordable food. With a new grocery store planned in each borough, NYC Groceries will make healthy food more affordable.
Staple foods will be discounted at 30% to ensure families can bring home essentials. The first grocery store is expected to open in late 2027, with all five opening by the end of Mayor Mamdani’s four-year term.
NYC Groceries will be one component of the city’s crisis response. The Roundtable’s 10 members, along with more than 700-plus emergency food organizations across the city, will continue to reach millions of New Yorkers struggling to afford healthy food.
Emergency food organizations like ours have adapted to meet the scale of the crisis. Providers are modernizing operations and enabling online ordering, home delivery, and other innovative distribution models to reach people beyond the pantry line: homebound seniors, people managing chronic illnesses, people with disabilities, families without reliable transportation, some immigrant New Yorkers, and those with cultural and dietary restrictions.
Our community expertise can support NYC Groceries in projects like nutrition education, helping customers sign up for benefits, and expanded food distribution options.
The city supports the emergency food network through the Community Food Connection (CFC) program. CFC boosts organizations’ funding and capacity, giving trusted providers the flexibility to respond to needs they see on the ground. This year, the city tripled baseline CFC funding, bringing the program to a historic $78.1 million.
We’re encouraged to see the city add NYC Groceries to this landscape of hunger relief. When the city funds food affordability and access initiatives, it’s investing in the well-being of New Yorkers. NYC’s commitment to CFC recognizes the value of a citywide frontline network with deep community roots, broad reach, and firsthand knowledge of where the current system falls short. CFC has helped the emergency food network modernize as New Yorkers’ needs change.
Building on existing public-private partnerships like Get the Good Stuff, which works with supermarkets to enable New Yorkers using SNAP to buy more fruits and vegetables, NYC Groceries is the newest piece of the food access network, changing the approach to affordable food.
Emergency food providers have supported our communities through thick and thin. We’ve seen how an all-of-the-above approach, with local government working with community and private partners, can meet the many needs of the New Yorkers we care for. NYC Groceries is one next step toward food security. When government invests in the solutions frontline organizations are already building, innovation becomes infrastructure — and more New Yorkers get the food they need.
Silverman is the executive director of The Roundtable: Allies for Food Access.