The founder and CEO of nonprofit organization Rethink Food, Matt Jozwiak, estimates 108 billion pounds of food go to waste each year in the U.S., while 38 million people lack reliable access to meals.
To help bridge the gap between unused food and hungry people, he teamed up with Brookfield Properties to open the Rethink Certified Campus at Brookfield's Manhattan West megadevelopment in New York City.
Brookfield, developer of the 7 million-square-foot Manhattan West, and Rethink, which has a mission to create a more sustainable and equitable food system, initially partnered in July 2020. At that time, Brookfield announced a $1 million initiative with Rethink and Danny Meyer's Union Square Hospitality Group to help revive New York City restaurants struggling with the disruption caused by the pandemic.
The activation of the first Rethink Food campus builds up the developer's partnership with Rethink, Brookfield said, and Jozwiak added in a statement that "this unique campus embodies how we can collectively transform excess food into nutritious meals — and connect these meals with areas of food insecurity."
At the Manhattan West campus, participating restaurant and food tenants are to donate excess food to be collected on-site and converted to free meals for the community at Rethink Food's commissary kitchen. They also could prepare meals using excess ingredients that would be distributed to communities facing food insecurity and raise funds and advocate for Rethink Food.
To finance the effort, Brookfield said it would make a $250,000 donation to Rethink Food, fortifying the long-standing partnership between the two organizations.
The Manhattan West Rethink Certified Campus is expected to collect more than 5 tons of excess food and provide 50,000 meals prepared by the Rethink Food commissary kitchen as part of the partnership.
In October, Citizens food hall opened at Manhattan West, and several of its tenants including Casa Dani, Katsuya and S Bar are involved in the Brookfield-Rethink initiative. Other tenant participants include Whole Foods Market, Daily Provisions and Black Fox Coffee, Brookfield said.