Kosher food bank opens $25 million Canarsie hub
Met Council, which runs America’s largest kosher food bank, opened a $25 million warehouse and conference center in Canarsie on Monday. For the first time, its food distribution operation has a permanent home, with the new building using artificial intelligence to forecast demand and cut down on wasted food.
More than 20 elected officials and 200 community leaders attended the grand opening.
“No New Yorker should have to choose between paying the rent and putting food on the table,” said Met Council CEO David G. Greenfield. “We built this warehouse because the need keeps growing, and we have a responsibility to meet it.”
“If you are fortunate enough to know where your next meal is coming from, you have a responsibility to help those who don’t,” he said.
The 22,000-square-foot building at 5361 Preston Court is the largest capital project in the 54-year history of the Metropolitan Council on Jewish Poverty. It will be the central hub supplying Met Council’s 344 pantry partners with kosher and halal food, feeding up to 1 million New Yorkers.
In fiscal year 2026, Met Council distributed more than 20 million pounds of food. Its food assistance and social service programs reach 350,000 New Yorkers each year, including families, seniors and Holocaust survivors.
During this fall’s High Holidays alone, the organization distributed more than 2 million pounds of kosher food. It also runs large distributions for Passover, Thanksgiving, Ramadan and Eid al-Adha.
The new warehouse has more cold storage and modern racking systems. It also uses barcode scanning, real-time inventory tracking, route optimization and AI tools that predict demand. Met Council says these upgrades will let it store more fresh food and get it to pantries faster.
“This is an extraordinary facility. It is beautiful, thoughtfully designed and built to serve New Yorkers for generations,” Greenfield said. He credited the board of directors, private donors and public funders with making the project happen.
The facility will expand Met Council’s role in New York’s Social Care Network program, which delivers medically tailored meals and groceries to eligible Medicaid members. Because the meals come in kosher and halal versions, recipients can follow both their medical diets and their religious dietary laws.
The warehouse also supplies Met Council’s National School Lunch Program, which serves 144 schools. It supports home deliveries to Holocaust survivors and homebound seniors, mobile pantries and year-round community distributions.
The building includes a digital food pantry for Canarsie, a neighborhood where fresh, affordable food is hard to find. Residents don’t wait in a line for a pre-packed bag. Instead, they order online, choosing from produce, proteins, dairy and pantry staples, including kosher and halal items. Then they pick up their orders on site.
Met Council says the model is built on dignity and choice and leads to shorter waits and less waste. It also gives the organization real-time data on what the community needs. The approach has been the subject of a Harvard Business Review case study.
The building also houses the Jewish Communal Fund Conference Center that will host trainings, coalition meetings and gatherings for the pantry partners, nonprofits, funders and government agencies working to end hunger in the city.
City, state, federal and private money paid for the project, including a $1 million state matching grant secured by state Sen. Sam Sutton, which Met Council donors and board members matched.
The digital pantry was funded by UJA-Federation of New York, and Greenfield thanked UJA for its year-round support of Met Council’s 10 anti-poverty programs.
Speakers at the opening included Greenfield; Joseph S. Allerhand, co-president of Met Council’s board; state Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli; city Comptroller Mark Levine; Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez; former City Council Speaker Adrienne E. Adams; Hannah Lupien, Met Council’s managing director of food programs; and Daniel B. Blaser, president of the Jewish Communal Fund.
Also attending were Bronx Borough President Vanessa L. Gibson; state Sens. Leroy Comrie, Kevin S. Parker and Sutton; Assembly members Alicia L. Hyndman, Larinda Hooks, Jaime R. Williams and Kalman Yeger; City Council Deputy Leader Chris Banks; Council members Farah N. Louis and Mercedes Narcisse; and Brooklyn Deputy Borough President Kim Council.
Met Council was founded in 1972. Besides food assistance, it provides emergency financial aid, help enrolling in benefits, support for domestic violence survivors, services for Holocaust survivors and seniors, and affordable housing. It serves New Yorkers of every background.
Reported by Met Council.
