Food Powers Brooklyn Economy

Turns out all that artisanal pickle making is having a big economic impact on Brooklyn — and outside it. Brooklyn’s growing restaurant and food manufacturing scene is creating jobs in the borough, a report from the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce has found. Food-related businesses from supermarkets to restaurants to manufacturing account for 16 percent of the 49,000 businesses in Brooklyn and 12.5 percent of the borough’s 472,000 private sector jobs. What’s more, the food chain added one out of every five new jobs in Brooklyn since 2000. “Brooklyn added, by far, the most jobs among the city’s five boroughs between 2000 and 2010, gaining 50,000 jobs, more than two-and-a-half times as many jobs as the Bronx, the borough with the 2nd greatest job growth,” said the report. Food is the No. 2 employer in the borough, surpassed only by health care. Food manufacturing alone generated $2.2 billion in revenue in 2011, and nearly a quarter of its output is sold outside Brooklyn. Of that output, $134 million accounts for exports outside the U.S. Total wages in the Brooklyn food chain sector came to $1.46 billion in 2011.
Brooklyn Takes Its Trendy Artisanal Food to the Bank [Brooklyn Eagle]
Brooklyn’s Food Chain [Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce]
Photo by wallyg