Daily Table
When Daily Table opened in Dorchester’s Codman Square last June, Doug Rauch, the nonprofit grocery store’s founder and CEO, had one goal in mind: to bring affordable meals to a neighborhood that was hungry for better food options.

Before the store launched, Codman Square was essentially a food desert: its only offerings for affordable meals were from fast-food chains like McDonald’s and KFC.

Now, just over three months since opening, the store boasts over 7,000 members, with about 300 customers visiting daily, and has begun to look into expanding with a second location in the Boston area.

“We’ve been absolutely shocked and pleasantly surprised with the tremendous positive response we’ve received from the community,” said Rauch.

Rauch came up with the idea for Daily Table while studying at Harvard’s Advancement Leadership Initiative in 2010. After spending three decades in the food industry, and 14 years as the president of Trader Joe’s, he was troubled by the amount of edible food that gets wasted annually in the United States — about 31 percent, or 133 billion pounds — of the available food supply, according to the USDA. That’s equivalent to about $161.6 billion lost on edible food each year.

Rauch launched the store to combat this problem and minimize the barriers that Boston’s poorest citizens face in gaining access to healthy, affordable meals. Daily Table does this by procuring surplus food from suppliers, some of which has passed its expiration date, and selling it for starkly lower prices than average supermarkets.
“We’ve been really pleased with the general community of food providers that have supported us and let us know that they’d like to support the Daily Table mission,” said Rauch.

According to Rauch, a strong network of suppliers — including the Greater Boston Food Bank, Boston Area Gleaners and nearby farms and co-ops — have been vital to Daily Table’s early success. When it first opened in June, just 30 percent of its product was donated, leaving the store to seek out and purchase the remaining 70 percent of its offerings. As of September, the amount of donated food rose to 50 percent, a figure that is key to Daily Table’s growth, Rauch said. The remaining product in the store is often bought at a discount thanks to what he calls “special relationships” the store has formed with his network of suppliers.

And donations to the store have been coming in from elsewhere: Just last week, Rauch said he received a gift from a family foundation in Missouri, the founders of which were inspired to send a check after watching a television segment about Daily Table.

But despite its rapid growth in membership and an increase in donated food and funding, Rauch said the store is far from turning a profit at this point.

“We’re a long way from that. Our goal is to eventually break even,” he said, adding that virtually no other initiative like Daily Table has even come close to that point.

Rauch said that for him, success is measured in the glowing reports he’s received directly from customers about the quality of the food and the attentive treatment from Daily Table staff. He said he has no plans to begin charging customers for membership, which is currently free, but required to shop in the store. Membership fees could be a strong source of revenue, but Rauch said that would run afoul of his goal for the store.

“We’re here primarily to serve the community, and allow customers to feed their kids and give them their best life,” he said. “Our store is filled with product that will move you forward, not hold you back.”

And customers seem to agree. Comments on the store’s Facebook page praise it for its variety of offerings, friendly staff and affordable meals. Daniel Nicholson, a Codman Square resident who said he was recently introduced to Daily Table, appreciates the storefront’s clean atmosphere, and said it’s been a needed addition to the neighborhood.

“To have this kind of product in the neighborhood is just great. We have more offerings here, and for dirt cheap,” Nicholson said. “I couldn’t ask for anything more.”