News

Investigation finds violations for NYC food cart commissaries

December 11, 2019

Commissaries used for storage by New York City food carts have received dozens of violations, according to an investigation by the NBC New York, such as food stored at improper temperatures, contamination and evidence of rodents.

NBC New York examined thousands of commissary inspection records from the city's department of health and mental hygiene from January 2016 through January 2019. The city has about 5,000 food carts listed and 130 mobile food vending commissaries.

The city requires food carts to have the name of the commissary it uses with them at all times, but NBC New York found only a few operators it spoke to could name the commissary they use or where the food comes from.

Only two out of seven vendors NBC New York spoke to had documents with their commissaries' names. Those two commissaries each had 28 violations, including evidence of rodents in the three-year period. These were among the 25 commissaries with the most violations.