If the Trump administration follows through on threats of mass deportation and tariffs, vendors at the Food Distribution Center could see higher prices – and so could consumers.
The Hunts Point Food Distribution Center is inextricably linked to the world outside of it. Events anywhere in the world– storms, droughts, wars, policy changes– are reflected in the cost of food items. Operating like a stock market, buyers and sellers set the prices of food items every night against the intersection of multiple factors, including availability of products, consumer interest, and competitive edge. The functioning of the distribution center, therefore, is vulnerable to the whims of federal politics.
The mass arrests and deportation of undocumented immigrants and blanket tariffs that President elect Donald Trump has promised could have significant implications for the distribution center– and the price of food. And as the largest food distribution center in the world by volume– it moves 4.5 billion lbs. of food and produces approximately $5 billion in annual revenue– the implications could be drastic for its diverse range of customers including independent restaurants and cafes to bodegas and supermarkets in New York City and beyond.
Set apart from the rest of the neighborhood, the Hunts Point Food Distribution Center is situated in its own cul-de-sac called “Food Center Drive.” While technically open 24 hours a day, it only really comes alive in the dead of night– a procession of behemothic diesel trucks begin their nightly crawl to the Hunts Point Produce Market at 10 pm, the Fulton Fish Market Cooperative at 2 am., and the Hunts Point Cooperative Market around 5 am. Inside of each of these markets an apparent chaos reigns; forklifts emerge and retreat from every direction, hagglers throw up their arms, and bare food gleams from haphazardly stacked crates.
In reality, the Food Distribution Center operates according to long established rituals– market veterans weave through forklifts with ease, haggling is informed and even tongue-in-cheek, and a team of inspectors roam the place all night to make sure food is kept pristine.
But deportations could disrupt the balance. Officially, everyone at the Hunts Point Food Market is legally authorized to work. But according to the Center for Migration Studies, the workforce of New York State currently includes 470,100 undocumented workers, and 70% of New York State’s undocumented labor force consists of workers in warehousing, distribution, fulfillment, and agriculture.
“It’s really clear that immigrants play an important role in all aspects of the food supply chain,” said David Dyssegaard Kallick, director at the Immigration Research Initiative at the Economic Policy Institute. “If there’s truly any kind of mass deportation, you can expect increased prices and decreased availability.”
Kallick explained that nearly all of the farm laborers in the country—the people picking fruit, milking cows, and harvesting crops—are immigrants. For years, farm owners have been eager to attract more workers and have made efforts to entice U.S. citizens into these roles.
However, it’s not just about wages.
“There are also issues like housing, the challenges of migratory work, and questions about where workers’ children would go to school,” he said.
Hunts Point Produce Market. Photo by Frances Sacks
Alfredo Gomez, an operations manager for one of Baldor’s main fish suppliers, Pierless Fish, contemplated the situation amid the bustle of the fish market.
“We have employees that have been working here [at the market] for over 20 years and unfortunately they weren’t able to fix their status here. But…it’s so much dedication and time they have given to the companies.”
Milton Rodriguez, owner of Randall’s Restaurant. Photo by Mrwa Abbas.
Despite this, small business owners like Milton Rodriguez, who has owned Randall’s Restaurant since 1994, doesn’t anticipate his business being impacted. Known for its Dominican cuisine and located about a mile from the Food Distribution Center, Rodriguez’s restaurant serves many Food Distribution Center workers and sources all its ingredients directly from there.
“If I hire someone without papers, I have to pay them the same as someone with papers. So, to me, it’s better if someone comes with papers,” said Rodriguez. He also expressed optimism about the economy, adding that he believes former President Trump will fix it, which he hopes will lead to lower prices for his business.
The economic logic behind a major deportation program is that it would free up more jobs for US citizens, who by virtue of their citizenship status are more likely to advocate for proper pay and working conditions. Employers will no longer get to choose between exploitable migrant labor and more expensive American labor.
However, Director Kallick predicts that American labor would not fulfill the gaps left by a decline of immigrant labor.
“If immigrants weren’t doing these jobs, there would undoubtedly be some U.S. workers who would step in,” he explained. “But it would take significant changes to make that happen, and even then, it’s unlikely there would be enough workers to meet demand, especially with unemployment at a historic low in the U.S. It’s not clear where millions of new workers would come from.”
On Nov. 25th, Trump announced plans to impose a blanket 25% tariff on goods from Canada and Mexico, along with a 10% tariff on goods from China. This comes after the fiscal year 2023, when the value of U.S. agricultural imports exceeded that of exports. And plenty of those imports– blueberries from Chile, bell peppers from the Netherlands, beef from Australia, and fish from Nova Scotia – came through the Hunts Point Food Distribution Center.
The Fish Market
Antonio Oliveri is a co-owner of Seatide Fish Market, a company that’s been in his family for three generations, and speaks with the fluency of someone who’s been around the business his whole life. He explained the potential impacts of tariffs on his industry, estimating that around 30% of his company’s fish is imported. One of his best sellers is salmon, much of which comes from Canada.
“From what I’ve heard from my shippers,” he said, “their export cost is gonna go up, the freight is gonna go up, our import cost is gonna go up.” And shipping costs are already unusually high.
“Things are a little tricky right now because of Ukraine with Russia and Israel with Palestine. The boats that normally bring in our product can’t pass through Israel. So it’s taking another 10 to 14 days for that freight to get here. Every extra day that it’s on the water, it’s costing more money– more fuel, more expense for the crew,” Oliveri explained.
At the fish market, it is immediately evident how sensitive buyers are to price changes.
Early on a Thursday morning in December, Robert Pedott, owner of Eastchester Fish, inspected a fresh looking assortment of rockfish. He’s been shopping at the market for 25 years.
“What are we doing on the rock today?!”
The fishmonger replied with $8/ lb, and Pedott was unimpressed.
“When your guy down the street who is normally less is higher, I’m like ‘ok, we’re going aggressive.’ I woulda liked $6. It’s a lot of belly, not a good yield.” He explained his rubric– “Look at the gills, the eyes. Look at the rigor. A couple of these guys are fat. We like northern fish, not southern fish.”
The American fishing industry is deeply entangled in the global economy. “I can tell you stories where boatloads of products are caught here and sent to China or Iceland, processed there, and sent back here and it’s still cheaper to do it that way,” said Bobby Weiss, president of Blue Ribbon Fish. He estimates that between 80% – 90% of seafood in the United States is imported, which is corroborated by USDA findings.
Behind the scenes at Master Purveyors, Inc. Photo by Frances Sacks
The Meat Market
At the Hunts Point Cooperative Market– the meat market component of the Food Distribution Center – purveyors remained relatively unconcerned about tariffs. Manager Bruce Reingold noted that “we don’t buy anything other than probably some New Zealand lamb that’s flown in. Most everything else is domestic.”
Mark Solasz, the Vice President of Master Purveyors Inc., which provides restaurants such as Peter Luger with their famous steak, sees the logic in Trump’s tariffs.
“Other governments might give their farmers tax breaks to use their land for raising lamb, whereas our farmers may not have the same kind of tax breaks,” he said. With the help of these subsidies, “they sell their product cheaper so we buy products for maybe half the price. Maybe the Trump administration doesn’t want that disparity to be so big.”
Solasz doesn’t anticipate any major ramifications of mass deportations on his business.
“I don’t think he’s just gonna make it one blanket thing,” he said. “They’re gonna have to have agents driving 20 square miles to the one place to find 3 people or 6 people. It’s gonna be diminishing returns.”
The Produce Market
Representatives at the Hunts Point Produce Market were unwilling to discuss the prospect of tariffs and deportations, and were adamant about blocking these questions from being posed to their vendors. However, the majority of fresh fruit and vegetables consumed in the US are imported, and the largest share of these imports come from Mexico and Canada.
Stephanie Tramulatola, a third-generation produce supplier from A&J, shed light on the subject indirectly, reporting that the international market for produce continues to grow.
“Things were more seasonal in the past, but now the consumer wants this food all year round,” she said. Imports from South America have been especially important, because “seasons are swapped between North and South America.”
And over the phone, Antonio Calandrella, who works in sales at Coosemans New York Inc., a specialty house inside the Produce Market, spelled out how tariffs will impact consumers. “We have stuff coming in on flights, we have stuff coming in on boats, and we have stuff coming in on trucks,” he said. When the shippers have to pay more money to get their goods across U.S. borders, “then that is going to be reflected in our initial course of goods. Something that would cost us $12 would now cost us, let’s say $12.45.” Someone, of course, has to eat that cost, and that responsibility falls on the consumer. “We have to charge more money, which makes the restaurant pay more money, which probably the end result of that is that the restaurants are going to have to raise their prices,” he said. “It’s a trickle down effect. And at the end, result is always going to end up at the cost for the consumer.”
It is not a stretch to imagine that prices of items like bananas, avocados, grapes, onions, tomatoes, salmon– staples of the American diet– may soon rise at the Hunts Point Food Distribution Center, and beyond.
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