New York SBDC Research Network

From CBS News Sunday Morning : Chobani, just five years on your grocery shelves, is now the best-selling yogurt brand in America. It's at the forefront of an even bigger culture shift: Greek yogurt, once a small fraction of the market, will top $1 billion in U.S. sales this year. "It's very high in protein, it has less sugar, and companies have made it absolutely delicious," said Cornell dairy specialist Tristan Zuber. "So that appeals to American consumers right now. They want something that's healthier." And it's very healthy for the New York state economy, said Zuber. Upstate New York is now home to all the major Greek brands. For local dairy farmers, you might just call it a cash cow. "New York is definitely becoming the Silicon Valley of yogurt," said Zuber. "There's currently 553 million pounds of yogurt that's manufactured in New York. That's a 140 percent increase since 2008." And the next generat

From the New York State Executive Chamber: Governor Andrew Cuomo launched the FreshConnect program in 2011 to create new farmers' markets and provide support to existing ones. In addition to providing farmers a consumer outlet, the FreshConnect program helped create local jobs for youth in urban areas and facilitated an increase in the sale of locally-grown food. After the success of last year's program, the initiative is now expanding to include not just farmers' markets, but other innovative projects that connect underserved communities with New York farm products. Click here to learn more. Potential expansion projects include: programs to increase access to farm products at food pantries delivery programs that send farm goods to areas in need programs for low-income individuals to access food directly from a farm new farmers' markets that are located in underserved neighborhoods satellite markets that purchase produce from an existing

Products made in New York generate comparatively high levels of wages and spinoff economic activity, according to a new report prepared by the Rockefeller Institute for the Manufacturing Research Institute of New York State. Even after recent losses, the state ranks sixth in the nation in total manufacturing jobs, according to the report. Including other jobs that depend on manufacturing, the sector supports one in three payroll dollars in much of upstate New York. Yet New York City is the largest single center of manufacturing in the state, with more than 81,000 jobs and $4.2 billion of payroll in 2009. In economic terms, the wealth created and added to the economy through manufacturing processes represented 52.7 percent of the total value of products shipped from New York in 2008, compared to 41.5 percent nationally. The state’s largest manufacturing sector, computers and electronic products, employs nearly 65,000 New Yorkers, with total payroll of $5.5 billion and average salaries