Economy
Phoenix Didn’t Just Feed the Hungry. It Saved Farms and Restaurants.
An innovative use of federal aid preserved jobs and small businesses while providing nearly 50,000 meals.
The Feed Phoenix program uses federal relief money to buy produce from local farms and pay chefs to prepare meals for locals in need.
Photographer: Chris Malloy/Bloomberg CityLab
By April of this year, small farms in greater Phoenix were devastated. Restaurants and markets had scaled back to curb the spread of Covid-19, leaving the many growers in and around Phoenix’s 517-square-mile sprawl with few buyers for ripe spring crops.
“My business from March to April went down 90%,” said Paris Masek, president of Green on Purpose, a purveyor of local farm foods to restaurants and caterers.