East End Food relaunches in new Riverhead home

Peering through a large interior window at East End Food’s new headquarters in Riverhead, Kayla Barthelme dreams of a future that links locally grown produce to students in school cafeterias and supports farmers along the way.

Through the window, a blank canvas of bare drywall will soon be transformed into a shared commercial kitchen key to the nonprofit’s mission of bridging the gap between Long Islanders, local food, farmers and institutions.

Barthelme, who took over as the organization’s interim director in December, is eager to “activate” the new food hub with public events while construction continues on the $1 million kitchen.

“A lot of people were curious what was going on with this empty building,” Barthelme said in a recent interview. “We’re really on a mission to raise awareness again for what this organization does [and] welcome people back into this space.”

The 5,000-square-foot facility in a former florist shop at the corner of routes 25 and 105 in Riverhead reopened this month with a Community Supported Agriculture fair for residents to learn about farm shares and a tax workshop for farmers. A monthly pop-up farmers market is set to return Saturday with more than a dozen vendors selling items such as microgreens, seafood, vineyards, soup and artisan crafts.

The market will be held on the third Saturday of each month through May, in addition to the weekly market currently held at Twin Fork brewery in Riverhead. Barthelme is encouraging people to visit both, adding that the goal is to eventually move the seasonal winter market to the new building.

Overcoming setbacks

East End Food was founded in 2010 at Stony Brook Southampton and began running a farmers market in Riverhead in 2021. The market moved to the brewery in 2024 as renovations got underway.

Losing their lease for kitchen space in Southampton put food processing on pause, and construction delays set the project back, but Barthelme said she’s committed to getting it back on track.

Construction will continue on the commercial kitchen, which will eventually accommodate food startups and help farmers process crops into shelf-stable products that increase revenue streams and reduce food waste. The organization is also looking to provide minimally processed ingredients to institutions across the region, including schools.

They also plan to use a $5 million state grant to purchase the property outright, so losing a lease is a concern of the past.

The new kitchen will be equipped to take in hundreds of pounds of produce. “We’ll chop it, blanch it, freeze it, vacuum-seal it or puree it … and then we can drop that off at a school cafeteria or food pantry,” Barthelme said. “It allows those organizations to work with local food a lot easier.”

Benefits of shared kitchen space

Commercial processing on farms is a rarity because of large overhead costs and local zoning regulations that typically do not allow such facilities on preserved farmland.

“At the end of the day, we have either feast or famine,” said Peter Treiber, who owns a 60-acre fruit and vegetable farm in Peconic.

Treiber, a former East End Food board member, said the shared kitchen helps farmers turn crops into hot sauce, jam, tomato sauce and other products, which can boost revenue even in the dead of winter when fields are barren. “It’s an ultimate way of leveraging your products,” he said.

Shared kitchen space also could benefit fledgling food entrepreneurs.

Aki Goldberg, who launched her soup brand at East End Food in 2020, has since expanded to salads, juices and other products. She credits the organization for her success early on, helping her secure licenses, sign up for required safety courses and network.

“They would help you connect with the farms,” she said in an interview. “I hope that in the future, once they have the kitchen again, they will be able to do that for people who are just starting. It’s a tough business we’re in.”

Barthelme, who runs a medicinal herb farm in Mattituck, said finishing the kitchen is a key way to support farmers and other food producers in the region with infrastructure to grow and remain viable.

“We have such a unique agricultural system out here that seems vibrant and thriving, but it has been in a massive decline for decades,” she said.

More pop-up events will be held at the new food hub, and Barthelme anticipates the commercial kitchen will be completed next January.