This meeting will feature a presentation by Kate MacKenzie, the Executive Director of The Mayor's Office of Food Policy.

As Executive Director of New York City’s Mayor’s Office of Food Policy (MOFP), Kate advises the Mayor on all issues related to food policy and the City’s food system. She leads the interagency COVID-18 food response to ensure that no New Yorker experiences hunger as a result of the pandemic. Through that work, more than 230M free meals have been provided to New Yorkers through emergency home delivery and the school system. Additionally, she designed and executed a $50M food reserve that has distributed fresh produce and culturally appropriate food to more than 400 community organizations and provided necessary equipment to enable organizations to with capacity to safely distribute food. She oversaw the creation of data systems to track the flow of emergency food through the city, and ensure it is equitably distributed to areas of highest need.

She leads the City’s Good Food Purchasing commitments, focused on increasing access to healthy, sustainable foods for the over 238 million meals and snacks served daily by City agencies, from public schools to senior centers. Through this work, City agencies recognize Meatless Mondays and have reduced the amount of processed meat they serve. She released Food Forward NYC, the City's first ever 10-year food policy plan, that lays out a comprehensive policy framework to reach a more equitable, sustainable, and healthy food system by 2031.

Kate is a recognized leader, with over two decades of experience fighting for food security and broader anti-poverty solutions in New York City and nationally. She comes to the Mayor’s Office from nearly two decades in non-profit and academia.   

In February 2021, New York City released its first ever 10-year food policy plan, Food Forward NYC. This presentation from Kate MacKenzie, Director of the NYC Mayor’s Office of Food Policy, will provide context for the development of the plan, including what we learned during the pandemic, and an overview of the plan’s major strategies.