Farm-Share Food Pick-Up Spot Debuts In Park Slope

PARK SLOPE, BROOKLYN — A new way to grab farm-to-table groceries has debuted in Park Slope.

BK Food Love — a farm share project that offers customizable produce and grocery packages — has set up shop between Fourth and Fifth avenues.

The stand, open on Saturdays, is the project's first foray into the neighborhood and the 10th outpost for picking up food ordered through BK Food Love's website, which is sourced through local farms.

"The main purpose is to be transparent on where the food comes from...that's something that was really important to us," Lindsey McTighe, one of the Food Love members running the Park Slope distribution site, told Patch.

"When you go to the grocery stores, they're not always transparent about where the food is coming from. This is a service that allows you to see even which farms [your food] comes from."

That transparency, and BK Food Love's support for local farms, was one of the main reasons McTighe and Yian Pan, the Park Slope outpost's other leader, were inspired to join the project several months ago.

Much like the beginnings of BK Food Love, started by Josh Katz on a street in Bed-Stuy, McTighe and Pan run the Park Slope outpost from their stoop on Ninth Street.

Members put in orders early in the week for a range of produce, eggs, bread, honey and other products and stop by during pick-up hours on Saturday to transfer the groceries from BK Food Love boxes into their own re-usable bags. Unlike other farm share programs, members can order on a weekly basis or set up a flexible recurring schedule.

And aside from its transparency and sustainability goals, the project also offers Brooklynites a safe option during the coronavirus pandemic, members say.

BK Food Love has grown from a small neighborhood project to serving more than 250 members in the last year and a half, much of which spanned the coronavirus crisis.

McTighe and Pan say it's hard to tell how much of that growth is due to New Yorkers looking for coronavirus-safe alternatives, but it certainly comes as a plus for those who sign up.

"It was mid-pandemic when I learned about it — I didn't want to go into a grocery store," Pan said. "[With BK Food Love], I got to pick up outdoors, and beyond that personal practicality, it was very much a community-based project...Being able to support local farms is important to me as a consumer."

BK Food Love also has spots in Greenpoint, Crown Heights, Sunnyside in Queens and several in Bed-Stuy. Find out more here.