New York has opened a $10 million competition for regional school-food infrastructure, offering two $5 million awards to build or upgrade facilities that prepare meals with food grown in the state. Gov. Kathy Hochul announced the fourth funding round Sept. 25, and the Department of Agriculture and Markets posted the application terms with a Jan. 22, 2027, deadline.
The money is not a general operating subsidy for cafeterias. State guidance says it is intended for capital projects such as regional aggregation and storage hubs, commissary-style kitchens, construction, repairs and related infrastructure. Eligible applicants include school districts, Boards of Cooperative Educational Services, municipalities and nonprofit organizations, but proposed projects must serve multiple school districts and support the surrounding community.
Four regions are eligible in this round: the Capital Region, Finger Lakes, Mohawk Valley and Southern Tier. The formal program page lists the counties in each region and says applicants must seek the full $5 million award. Two regions will be selected, leaving the other two for the final round in the state’s five-year allocation schedule.
The competition is part of a $50 million program designed to place one $5 million project in each of New York’s 10 economic-development regions. Western New York and the North Country received the first-round awards; Central New York and Long Island followed; and New York City and the Mid-Hudson region were selected in the third round. The governor’s announcement says $30 million has now been committed across those six regions.
The policy goal is to connect statewide free school meals with the physical capacity needed to cook more food from scratch. The current request for proposals says projects should increase use of New York farm products, reduce food insecurity, create markets for producers and strengthen food-system resilience. It also requires a workforce-development component, which can include training in culinary skills, food processing, safe handling, storage, logistics and delivery.
That regional design matters because individual districts may lack the scale to finance major processing or distribution equipment alone. A shared facility can centralize preparation and storage while serving several school systems, although applicants must demonstrate how the project will operate across district boundaries and benefit the wider community.
New York’s broader farm-to-school system provides context for the capital spending. A December 2025 state review reported $66.5 million dedicated since 2021 across the 30% New York State Initiative, Farm-to-School grants and the regional infrastructure program, reaching more than 1.1 million students. That review also described the infrastructure grants as long-lived investments intended to expand fresh, scratch-made meals beyond a single budget year.
Applicants must use New York’s Statewide Financial System; emailed, mailed or faxed proposals will not be accepted. For districts and regional partners, the central decision is whether they can assemble a multi-district project at the required $5 million scale before the January deadline. For farmers and food processors, the selected projects could create durable institutional buyers rather than one-time purchasing campaigns.
