Educational Media Reviews Online

This brilliant work charts the “organized chaos” involved in feeding the 8 million people of New York City where next to no food is grown or produced. The film begins by offering a dose of staggering figures. For example, 500 tons of produce move a day… from one produce distributor. There is a constant balancing act between craftsmanship and speed amongst bakers, wholesalers, and more. One also sees the absurd but necessary extents to which producers and merchants must go to make sales, such as driving cheese to the city at 1 AM. There are enormous pressures on buyers and sellers, and demanding matters of maintenance, such as ripeness of bananas and freshness of tons of fish.

This documentary then offers a series of interlaced stories in following the journeys of products such as truffles, peppers, ciabatta bread, and bananas. It describes instances of entrepreneurship in which small businesses take advantage of the huge demand, and with that comes a small glimpse into the restaurant industry. On a distinctly compassionate and humanitarian note, there is an account of a worker who regularly rescues food from spoilage to feed the needy, taking it at no cost from distributors who do not want spoiled food on their hands, followed by a story of a former top chef who now serves the homeless and struggles to keep his soup kitchen afloat.

This ambitious and well researched documentary is completely demonstrative, but exceptionally diverse and entertaining. It does not merely let one stand back in awe of the whole enterprise, but gets the audience into the minute aspects of the operations needed to feed an enormous city.