Maxwell Bernstein

Senior Analyst

Max brings nearly a decade of experience in the food industry to KK&P. He spent eight years as a cook, bread baker, and business operations manager at independently-owned restaurants and bakeries in both Seattle and New York before going back to school, earning his Master’s degree in Urban Planning at the Robert F. Wagner School of Public Service at NYU in 2020.

At Wagner, he studied the political, social, and physical forces which shape urban and regional food networks, the policy levers available to local governments to advance equity within these systems, and the impacts these interventions have on the ways city dwellers eat and work. During his time at Wagner, Max interned at the New York City Economic Development Corporation, performed research at the Rudin Center for Transportation Policy, and worked as an intern and fellow with the New York City Mayor’s Office of Operations.

Food systems planning and strategy is a relatively niche field: there aren’t many firms that do what KK&P does. When Max learned about KK&P while at Wagner and later saw the opening for a research assistant, he “saw all the things [he] wanted to be doing,” he said, and quickly applied. Since joining the company, Max has been working on collective purchasing and advocacy work for a coalition of NYC food pantries, NYC’s Good Food Purchasing program, and more. < BACK TO ABOUT