Global Farm Marketplace — Local services in New York

DISCLOSURE: I helped build and currently help manage Global Farm Marketplace. I love it here and hope you do too.

I wanted to immediately address a few negative comments in the reviews regarding perceived heightened surveillance regarding possible shoplifting. I want to first off unequivocally state that racism is not tolerated in our workplace, either towards our customers or from our customers. I also wanted to state that there are a few bad actors in our community who do come in and steal items from us. These very few bad actors are as diverse as the rest of our community. This necessitates heightened surveillance. Its terrible that a few people make us work so much harder and degrades our store and neighborhood. We apologize if anyone feels uncomfortable, but our aim is to make sure our store is a safe and wonderful environment.

Some partners of Global Farm have been part of this community since the early 1990s, including myself. We started working here when David Dinkins was the mayor. In fact his administration provided the funds for us to start to rebuild a neighborhood that had been in rough shape after the blackout and fires of 1977 (when I was in high school). We have helped bring to the neighborhood the Betances Medical facility, the Post Office, the Head Start, Traditional Daycare and other meaningful contributors to our community. This is a resilient and wonderfully diverse community. The happiest moment I have had since we opened Global Farm was when a local lady said she had waited her whole life for a supermarket like this in her neighborhood.

We enjoy walking down the street and seeing trees that we planted in the first half of the 1990s such as those on Woodbine Street next to the supermarket, complemented by our three new ones around the supermarket on Broadway and Palmetto. We want Global Farm to be a beacon of light shining into our community. In addition to beautiful trees, we will help maintain clean, well-lit and safe sidewalks for all the members of our community.

Inside Global Farm we are seeking to provide everything that the community would like. This is going to take a while as we have such a wonderfully diverse Brooklyn neighborhood. Please be patient as we work towards figuring out what that is! But we are here to stay and serve the needs of this beautiful community so please let us know what you would like in YOUR store. We would really appreciate feedback as to anything you do not find. We aim to please. Please speak with our management or drop a note in our suggestion box right by the coffee and fresh fruit café on the way out of the supermarket.

We are particularly interested in your wishes for healthy and nutritious foods - whether prepared by our kitchen staff and available at the deli, or ready to go, off the shelves. Don’t miss our fresh fish available to the right upon entering past the Produce and our sushi station. Please enjoy our fresh juice station and hot drinks. Seniors enjoy your Wednesday morning discount right now.

Keep a lookout for our online ordering platform to get up and running! Thank you! Global...

This store is really a mixed bag. Honestly, I’m glad to have it in the neighborhood, but it does have a few serious failings. The main issue is the produce. It is NOT fresh. Many items I’ve bought go rotten very quickly and on many occasions, I’ve seen produce that is already turning bad while on the shelves. The worst offenders are bell peppers, cucumbers, fresh herbs like mint, rosemary, etc. The lack of organic apples is irritating. The ones on the shelves now are very clearly OLD. Bought a bag of potatoes that went rotten after two weeks in my fridge. No reason for that. God only knows how old they were when I bought them. I really resent throwing money in the trash. Grapes are expensive and mushy.

I went in there last week and saw $11 pints of blueberries. Seriously? They were just regular old blueberries.

Guys, you’ve got to up your game in the produce section. I know it’s NYC and we’re all used to having to buy garbage produce, but you’ve got serious competition moving in. I’d really like to not give all my money to Jeff Bezos if I can help it. One more reason that every Whole Foods I go into here is mobbed on the weekends and every Food Town/Global Farm/Key Foods isn’t. Quality!

I do like that they sell wild salmon at a decent price. So, that’s a plus. The chicken selection is your usual that you see in every other grocery store. All the beef is low grade. I know this is a tough one as beef is so expensive these days. I walked up Broadway to Broadway Meats and got some very high quality rib eyes recently. I’ll go there when I need good quality beef for special occasions. Also, I’ll go there for racks of ribs sold at a great price.

As far as the staff goes, it’s also a mixed bag. Some are great, friendly and helpful. Others not so much. Call me crazy or old school, but I do expect the check out people to help bag my groceries. At Global Farm, some do and some don’t. It’s irritating. Now, I always get in the line for the people that I know will provide service and avoid the grumps that don’t.

The guy that runs the sushi counter is super nice. He’ll make up rolls for you on the spot if asked.

As far as the security people and feeling like I’m being watched or followed around, I can’t say that I’ve had issues with that but I’m a white dude. I’ve noticed that many POC in these reviews feel like they’re being treated with disrespect and suspicion when shopping here. I’ll defer to them on this. I will say that I’ve noticed a much more conspicuous security presence in many grocery stores these days. Even at the Whole Foods in Williamsburg, they’ve got guards everywhere and that’s a pretty affluent area.

Anyways, I’ll say I’m generally glad to have the convenience of a large grocery store so close to home, but man it could be so much better with a few tweaks here and there. Good luck, Global Farm. I’m rooting for you but my patience is not infinite. I’ll schlep over to Whole Foods if I’m forced to but like I said before, I’d rather not give all my money to...

From the beginning of construction I was excited about the new supermarket coming into the area. We definitely needed a change from the other markets that were not giving us that quality of merchandise that I so desperately wanted. A month after the market opened, I visited and to my surprise I couldn’t believe what I saw. (1) The seafood section, there was an old man (staff), near the sink, which I’m assuming is used for cleaning, hawked up something from inside of his body and spat it into the sink. (2) My son’s fiancée, another excited customer, visited the market and she as well visited the seafood section. She unexpectedly noticed a young man, behind the station (staff) intensely scratching his head with both hands. She reported that she stayed there for a while watching him to see if he would stop to acknowledge her. However, he was so engrossed with the itch that it didn’t occur to him that he was being watched. (3) I visited the market recently, just to give it another try and here we go again. The two women (staff), servers, at the hot food section, had their backs turned towards the food, sampling the food with their gloves on. I walked around and came back and saw the younger female, use some kind of instrument, poke it into one of the food trays, pulled up a piece of food and ate it. (4) I recently learned that my son also visited the market, previously, and staff members were following him throughout the market.

This was definitely not the experiences we were so eagerly awaiting for with this new market. If they don’t get quality, diverse, trained, staff to help maintain the name (Global) and proper management in place, this newly established market...