State and federal officials are headed to New York City to investigate its big apple crisis — while the city has told vendors to keep accepting deliveries despite thousands of cases of fruit going to waste.
Representatives from the US Department of Agriculture and the state Office of General Services plan to visit city facilities on Aug. 15-16 to assess the quantity and quality of the produce — prompted by The Post’s exclusive report that the city had ordered nearly 279,000 cases of free apples from the USDA, far more than it could use.
The city Department of Education’s food-service managers placed the order as part of a federal and state partnership to give schools fresh fruit.
Since then, schools and food distributors have been overwhelmed by the nonstop deliveries of apples, including through the summer. Some apples arrive spoiled while others go uneaten and are left to rot.
Sources estimate the order was worth $5.5 million, and that 45% of the apples delivered since March have been trashed.
The visit was initially planned for this week but postponed because of Tropical Storm Debby, officials informed DOE food distributors.
In the meantime, the DOE’s Office of Food and Nutrition Services has continued to recommended that its distributors accept the apples, even those that come spoiled or damaged, sources said.
Photos shared with The Post show crates with rotten, moldy fruit and trash cans full of apples,
One showed several garbage bags filled with apples on the curb at a Queens school in June. A custodian told a parent that it happened “most days.”
Kids didn’t eat the apples and they weren’t donated because of “red tape,” the mom was told.
A source said the city won’t donate them because it doesn’t want to admit it over ordered — a move many called “ridiculous” considering all the homeless and hungry people in NYC.
The OFNS is informing the state and USDA of the poor quality, and making the excuse that their condition is the reason the apples have gone to waste — not because the city ordered too many.
“They are attempting to blame the manufacturer for the poor quality, rather than addressing the bad decision to accept 279,000 cases of substandard apples,” one insider said.
The city did not respond to an inquiry from The Post.
