Daily Table, with shelves full of surplus and aging food, is being billed as the United States’ first not-for-profit grocery store.(Photo: H. Darr Beiser, USA TODAY)
A former president of Trader Joe's has opened what he is billing as the United States' first not-for-profit grocery store that focuses on providing healthy and affordable meals to low-income people.
Daily Table, with shelves full of surplus and aging food, welcomed customers Thursday in the low- to middle-income Boston neighborhood of Dorchester, according to WBUR, Boston's National Public Radio station.
Prices are remarkably cheaper than Whole Foods and average neighborhood stores. The store is selling canned vegetables two for $1 and a dozen eggs for 99 cents, WBUR reports. Potatoes are 49 cents a pound and bananas are 29 cents a pound.
"Our job at Daily Table is to provide healthy meals that are no more expensive than what people are already buying," Doug Rauch, the founder of Daily Table and former president of Trader Joe's told The Boston Globe. "We're trying to reach a segment of the population that is hard to reach. It's the working poor who are out buying food but who can't afford the food they should be eating."
That mission is also spelled out on Daily Table's website. "Our meals are priced to compete with fast food options, making it easier for families to eat healthier within their means," the website says. "We are on a mission to help communities make great choices around food by making it easy for them to choose tasty, healthy, convenient and truly affordable meals and groceries. And we do this in a respectful manner that honors our customer, engendering dignity."
Daily Table can offer lower prices because it sources surplus foods or goods nearing their "sell-by" dates from farmers, supermarkets, manufacturers and food distributors, who would rather donate or sell their products at steep discounts than toss them in the trash, The Boston Globe reports.
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Customers can also buy prepared meals at the not-for-profit grocery store. Rauch brought in a team of nutritionists and specialists from local hospitals and universities to develop a set of guidelines for levels of sodium, fibers, sugars and other elements in prepared meals, The Boston Globe reports.
"The recipes have to change every day because the donations change every day," head chef Ismail Samad told WBUR. Even though the food is not as new as what's in your local supermarket, that doesn't mean it's bad, he added.
In 2013, about 49 million Americans lived in "food insecure households," meaning they had limited access to nutritionally adequate and safe food, according to Feeding America, which runs a network of food banks around the country.
Yet, Parke Wilde, a professor at Tufts University's Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy, said new retailers in low-income and underserved areas must keep in mind that people in such communities have multiple goals.
"They want healthy food, yes, but also high-quality, visually appealing, and reasonably priced food," Wilde said of low-income shoppers. "If a local retailer doesn't offer those features, low-income consumers frequently travel outside their own neighborhood to get what they seek. New retailers — whether for-profit or non-profit — must be ready to face this tough competition."
Daily Table is membership-based, and customers must provide their ZIP codes to shop, The Boston Globe reports. Rauch says he intends for the store to predominantly serve people in the surrounding neighborhood and may have to exclude shoppers from other communities later.
"Daily Table sounds like a promising retail innovation using an intermediate format, in some ways like a commercial supermarket and in other ways like a nonprofit food provider," Wilde said. "I look forward to seeing whether this model works and can be adopted more widely."
Rauch plans to open more stores in both the greater Boston area and additional cities across the country, according to the store's website.
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