ABOUT Mary Cleaver

Mary Cleaver, is one of the country’s foremost authorities on sustainable food and local sourcing, and the founder of Cleaver Co, The Green Table, Table Green, and Table Green Café in New York City, and Green Table Farms in Hartford, NY. Mary founded Cleaver Co, a full-service event planning and catering operation in the late 1970s and grew it over the years to serve a large roster of private, non-profit, and corporate clients. As Mary’s business grew, so did her reputation for providing sumptuous, seasonally-driven food, attentive service, excellent event design and planning – and for helping create a regenerative, humane, and delicious food system. Cleaver Co was widely recognized for utilizing local farms and purveyors to obtain the best-quality product, and for supporting small to mid-size farms and family farmers who steward the land. Cleaver Co worked with dozens of purveyors, from the Hudson Valley to the Fingerlakes and the East End of Long Island as well as through GROW NYC Greenmarkets purchasing fruit, vegetables, grains, flowers, animal proteins, and much more from our local farmers.

In 2011 Mary was named the inaugural “Snailblazer” by Slow Food NYC to honor her contributions creating a better, healthier food system for all. Her current and past board affiliations include Hawthorne Valley Farm, Slow Food NYC Advisory Council, the Glynwood Advisory Council, Chef’s Council for Emma’s Torch, GreenWave Advisory Council.  In the aftermath of the September 11th Attacks, Cleaver Co was hired by the Episcopal Church to produce 200 meals a day seven days per week for nine months to feed first responders and relief workers at St. Paul’s Church.  Through that work Mary became a founder of the Farm to Chef network, the first distribution service marketing local farm product from farmers in the Hudson Valley directly to chefs in New York City.

Before founding Cleaver Co, she was a corporate chef at G.A.F. Corporation, the pastry chef at J.S. Vandam, a food stylist, and a cooking teacher at The New School. Mary co-authored The TriBeCa Cookbook, published by Ten Speed Press in 1995, and is a graduate of Bennington College.

Today, Mary is a sought-after for her expertise on local food and agriculture, as well as a mentor to restaurateurs and business owners seeking to source food locally and sustainably. In 2015, the combined businesses under the Cleaver Co umbrella were named Green Business of the year by the Manhattan Chamber of Commerce.  In 2017 she was named to City & State Magazine’s 100 Most Responsible list. Cleaver Co was officially registered as a B Corp in 2017.

Cleaver Co closed at the end of 2020.  Since then, Mary has served as a consultant on various food system and events projects. Recent efforts include kitchen and culinary program design for Ocean Hour Farm, in Newport, RI as well as gala and wedding planning from NYC to Toronto. She is available for select consulting and planning work.