UNA-NYC Summer Series:
Sustainable Food Systems in New York and the World
Matt Jozwiak
Founder and CEO, Rethink Food
Marc de Konkoly Thege
Worker-Owner, Mi Oh My Hydroponic Farms
Ceci Pineda
Executive Director, BK ROT
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Thursday | 24 June 2021 | 6:00 to 7:00 p.m. EST
Note: This event will last approximately 1 hour, and will include a brief Q+A session.
This event is the third in our four-part summer series, Sustainable Food Systems in New York and the World, in which we aim to prepare our membership and the general public to engage with the UN Food Systems Summit this September.
Reducing Food Waste in New York City
There are currently signs, with the USDA announcement in May about the availability of up to $2 million for local governments to host Community Compost and Food Waste Reduction (CCFWR) pilot projects for 2021, of a growing support for local strategies to develop and implement municipal compost and food waste reduction plans, as part of broader efforts to support urban agriculture.
Towards a local perspective here in New York, our three guest speakers will share some of their inspiration and approaches in their own work involving issues of composting and food waste reduction.
Matt Jozwiak, founder and CEO of Rethink Food, will discuss his nonprofit’s mission to create a more sustainable and equitable food system through its development of three practical models to reduce food insecurity and feed communities: Rethink Certified, a partnership program providing funding and resources to restaurants to prepare nutritious and culturally sensitive meals; Rethink Café, one of NYC’s first pay-what-you-can community cafes that invites everyone and anyone to enjoy a nutritious meal for a suggested donation of $5; and the Rethink Commissary, which converts donated food items from grocery stores, corporate partners and restaurants into nutritious meals to deliver to community-based organizations (CBOs) at no cost.
In his presentation, Marc de Konkoly Thege, CEO and Co-Founder of Grounded Upcycling, will be looking at “specialty” organic residual streams — including coffee, brewer spent grain, greasy fast food scraps, baking scraps — and finding their highest potential use. As NYC navigates the new realities of the commercial waste zone law, there is increased pressure to engage in city planning that incorporates the circular economy and systems. Marc explores the possibility of building the base of a successful organics recycling system, one that reduces waste and recovers more food, by building around the highest potential use for “speciality” organic waste streams.
Also on hand will be Ceci Pineda, Executive Director of BK ROT, NYC's first bike-based organic waste collection and composting service, powered by youth. Ceci will speak to the power of communities determining their own organic waste management — to create closed loop, fossil free and just systems — that invest in our communities, soils and build climate resilience.
Panel Speakers
MATT JOZWIAK
In 2017, Matt Jozwiak founded Rethink Food, a not-for-profit whose mission is to reduce food insecurity with practical solutions that will have lasting impact. Rethink Food develops distribution models, including partnering with restaurants, to provide nutritionally dense, culturally sensitive meals for underserved communities.
Before founding Rethink Food, Jozwiak worked on the culinary team of notable restaurants worldwide including Auberge de L’ile Barbe in Lyon, Noma in Copenhagen, and The NoMad in New York before becoming a chef de partie at Eleven Madison Park in New York, at age 27.
Prior to this, he completed his professional culinary training with Pierre Orsi in Lyon, France in 2015. Jozwiak is a member of the board of Rethink Food and also serves on the advisory board of The Foundation for New York's Strongest. He has published opinion pieces on food insecurity and distribution in publications such as New York Daily News and frequently lectures on these issues at Cornell and Columbia Universities.
A native of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Jozwiak currently resides in New York City.
MARC DE KONKOLY THEGE
Marc de Konkoly Thege is the CEO and Co-Founder, Grounded Upcycling. He has 5 years experience working in organics waste collection, management, and upcycling. In his role as Founder of RoHo Compost, he oversaw an organics collection operation that transported 3 million lbs of food scraps to compost facilities in the region from 2017-2019. He and other organic waste micro haulers participated in advocacy for the Commercial Waste Reform legislation, and to exempt bike and zero-emissions vehicle organic waste collectors.
In his current capacity as a worker-owner of the Mi Oh My Hydroponic Farms workers cooperative based in the Bronx, he grows microgreens and created a unique protocol to upcycle coffee grounds produced in cafes and urban ag residuals into culinary mushroom production. Mi Oh My is currently developing a program to address food insecurity in the Bronx using a grant from the Bronx Community Foundation.
CECI PINEDA
Ceci Pineda is a queer gender non-conforming organizer, composter/earth steward, creative and facilitator learning how to live in more harmony with the land. She is dedicated to climate justice and queer trans people of color liberation.
Ceci is the Executive Director of BK ROT, a youth powered food waste hauling and composting service in Bushwick, Brooklyn. They formerly served as the resiliency coordinator at GOLES. Their climate resilience work is rooted in community practices that further land regeneration and reciprocally heal our communities.