Food and beverage alliance forms in Hudson Valley

Combine  dairy and meat farmers, vegetable growers, beverage makers.  Sprinkle in some unique small-niche food businesses. Then pair them with packaging companies  and distributors so each  can find the ingredient it needs to work smoothly. That is the winning recipe for the region”™s economic growth and goal of the newly formed Hudson Valley Food and Beverage Alliance.

The alliance held its first roundtable at the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park on Feb. 2. More than 200 companies, economic leaders and home-grown food and drink purveyors attended the standing-room-only conference.

PepsiCo, Gillette Creamery, Crown Maple Syrup Farm, Tuthilltown Spirits  and restaurateur Peter X. Kelly were among the attendees representing Dutchess, Orange, Putnam, Rockland, Sullivan, Ulster and Westchester counties.

“People will travel 60 miles to go to a great restaurant,” said Kelly, founder of Xaviars Restaurant Group, making upscale Hudson Valley restaurants an attractive place for visitors and helping to generate tourism. Likewise, the Hudson Valley”™s bounty is in high demand further south, where city dwellers are eager to eat and drink locally produced, fresh food and hand-crafted beverages – and willing to pay a hefty price to do so.

To date, connecting the many facets of the industry, even though they share a common bond, has been a problem. Officals from the Hudson Valley Economic Development Corp. and the Westchester County Office of Economic Development said the roundtable was a first step in helping everyone in the industry connect through a regional  hub.