October 20, 2026
Text and photographs by Leila Darabi
On a recent Friday morning, Mustapha Abdul-Rahim, Leo Gibbs, and Deacon O’Connor worked at different tables lining Brooklyn Packers’ small storefront at 224 Marcus Garvey Blvd. At that Bedford-Stuyvesant location, they pulled produce from flats, sacks and tubs. They then packed corn, red potatoes, onions, callaloo, peppers and tomatoes into bright green reusable shopping bags. They later placed ground beef and salad kits into the bags as well. The food was destined for Brooklyn Community Services, to be distributed free to people who signed up for the program.
Two refrigerated vans sat outside. A walk-in refrigerator filled much of the space. Abdul-Rahim, Brooklyn Packers’ market and warehouse manager, said the shift would take three to four hours, including loading the van, cleaning up, and returning unused food to the refrigerator.
Brooklyn Community Services, one of Brooklyn’s oldest and largest human services organizations, buys the food, while Brooklyn Packers packs and distributes about 10,000 bags a year for the program, said Abdul-Rahim. The food packed that morning came from four or five different suppliers.
The people behind Brooklyn Packers describe it as a Black-led, worker-owned cooperative that connects small and midsize farms and independent food producers with communities, businesses, pantries and institutions. It was founded in 2016 by Shawn Santana and his cousin Steph Wiley.
“I find it hard to actually shop or buy vegetables in a grocery store because [our] vegetables are actually really, really good and healthy,” said Abdul-Rahim from Brooklyn Packers.
Gibbs, an artist who works in film and television, has known Abdul-Rahim and Santana for years. “It’s like working with family,” he said. Asked what he likes about the work, O’Connor said, “Good people to work with. And you’re working towards helping the community.”
Abdul-Rahim, a retired chef, developed recipes for Brooklyn Packers’ social media channels in its early years to show people how to cook seasonal produce. “I find it hard to actually shop or buy vegetables in a grocery store because [our] vegetables are actually really, really good and they’re healthy,” Abdul-Rahim said. “I know where they’re coming from.”
Building a Cooperative
Karna Ray, who works with Wiley on Brooklyn Packers’ business growth and strategy, explained the distinction between Brooklyn Packers and Brooklyn Supported Agriculture, or BSA, in a Zoom interview. “Brooklyn Packers is the co-op, that’s the labor cooperative,” Ray said, while “BSA is the customer-facing farm-share portion of it.”
Wiley traces Brooklyn Packers’ beginnings to Nextdoorganics, where he worked more than a decade ago. He described the company as an early “digital farm share”: customers ordered CSA-style shares online for delivery or pickup at locations around Brooklyn.
As the company pursued growth, Wiley said, it took venture capital, became overleveraged and struggled to pay workers and farmers. At the same time, Wiley was taking classes on worker cooperatives through The Working World, a nonprofit that provides nonextractive financing and business support to cooperatives.
Brooklyn Packers began largely as a labor cooperative, but the worker-owners soon saw an opportunity to apply a more intentional food justice lens to the same work.
As Nextdoorganics struggled, Wiley and several coworkers began considering whether to form a cooperative, though the others eventually moved on. Around the same time, Wiley recruited his cousin Santana, an experienced restaurant and catering owner, to start Brooklyn Packers with him.
“He literally never saw his family,” Wiley recollected of Santana’s restaurant and catering life. “He was kind of burnt out on that. So I asked him, ‘Hey, you want to come and start this thing with me?’ And he said yes.”
Brooklyn Packers began largely as a labor cooperative, handling ordering and fulfillment for small food delivery companies. But Wiley said the worker-owners soon saw an opportunity to apply a more intentional food justice lens to the same work.
Through BSA, the cooperative sources food from independent producers across the Northeast. Wiley said it buys in-season food from Black, brown, queer and trans farmers, many of them women and many in the Hudson Valley.
“We try to keep it as local as possible,” Wiley said.
More Than a Transaction
Many of Brooklyn Packers’ farm relationships go back 10 to 15 years, in some cases to friendships that predate the farmers’ agricultural careers.
“I know these farmers in a way where, like, I know their children. Like, I know their dogs,” Wiley said. “I walk their land. I know their partners.”
Rock Steady Farm describes Brooklyn Packers as a partner in sales, delivery routes, regional organizing and food-movement work.
Wiley said Brooklyn Packers also provides transportation and cold storage for farmers, stores eggs for a local farm and hosts an herb CSA in the city. In addition to their refrigerated vans, they are working to acquire a box truck.
“We have our hands in all the aspects of the supply chain,” Wiley said.
Wiley’s interest in food access is also personal. Growing up in Queens in the 1970s and ’80s, he remembered a household shaped by two working parents and the rise of canned and convenience foods.
Ray said Brooklyn Packers considers packing and fulfillment skilled work that should be compensated.
“We do professionally what we do because oftentimes these are jobs that are deeply undervalued,” Ray said. “We want to pay people for them.”
The sourcing can also shape what ends up in the bags. Abdul-Rahim pointed to callaloo, the leafy green being packed that morning. He suggested treating it like spinach: steaming it with onions and peppers, sautéing it as a side, adding it to soup or even making a callaloo-artichoke dip.
A Different Relationship With Food
Wiley’s interest in food access is also personal. His father had diabetes and eventually died from it, Wiley said. Growing up in Queens in the 1970s and ’80s, Wiley remembered a household shaped by two working parents and the rise of canned and convenience foods.
He said he did not eat what he considered a “real tomato” until his 20s, when working in food exposed him to produce he had never encountered growing up.
“It was so different from what I knew a tomato to be that it should be criminal almost,” Wiley said.
That experience introduced him to what he called “a totally different food universe,” one he believes should not be limited by neighborhood or income.
Brooklyn Packers also plans to expand retail at its Marcus Garvey Boulevard location, selling fresh produce, meat, eggs, chicken and products from small independent producers.
Asked what he wanted Park Slope Food Coop members to know about BSA, Wiley talked about the purchasing power of food cooperatives and Brooklyn Packers’ work supporting smaller farms.
He noted that Brooklyn Packers and the Coop already share a supplier in Hepworth Farms, while pointing to other, even smaller producers that could benefit from the Coop’s purchasing power. For smaller farms, however, getting food to a large buyer can require transportation, cold storage and other infrastructure that Brooklyn Packers provides.
They are already building a similar relationship with the Central Brooklyn Food Coop, a Black-led, member-owned grocery cooperative working toward its first store at the Steps at Saratoga development, expected to open in 2028. The project will include space for Brooklyn Packers to warehouse and distribute food sourced from New York farms, supported in part by a New York State grant to RiseBoro Community Partnership.
Abdul-Rahim said Brooklyn Packers also plans to expand retail at its Marcus Garvey Boulevard location, selling fresh produce, meat, eggs, chicken and products from small independent producers.
For Wiley, the larger goal remains making the chain between farmer and eater shorter, more transparent and more supportive of the people along it.
“We know exactly where the food is coming from,” Wiley said. “And we know the hands that are growing and harvesting it. Like, we know the hands that are delivering it. We know everybody that’s involved in this system.”
Leila Darabi joined the Gazette as a reporter in 2016. She posts photos of the food she makes with Coop ingredients on Instagram (@persian_ish).