Not Gross-ery, but Grocery
Categories:
food waste
Categories: food waste
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A combination of interesting connections and coincidences led to this post. First of all, who says that teachers don’t learn from their students? Certainly not me. In my graduate Project Management class at Boston University, a group-based course, each team must select a project and follow it along from charter to lessons learned, including a presentation of their project plan. One group in my last class decided to make their project about food waste (reducing it, that is) and imagined a project in which they would pilot a food-waste reduction project at a Trader Joe’s location with the intent to spread it through the Trader Joe’s chain if successful. For those who don’t know, Trader Joe’s is an American chain of grocery stores based in Monrovia, California with 474 stores nationwide in 43 US states and in Washington, DC.
WBS from PM Course Project on Food Waste Awareness at Trader Joe's The group did a great job with their imaginary project (for example, see their WBS above) and I thought that would be the last I'd hear about food waste for a while. But instead, the Boston Globe today featured (front page of their Business section) a story entitled, “CAN THIS GROCERY STORE CHANGE THE WAY WE EAT?”. The story is about a store called Daily Table, and it is founded by Doug Rauch. The connection here is that Doug Rach is a former president of Trader Joe’s for 14 years. Daily table’s mission is: At Daily Table we believe that delicious, wholesome and affordable food should be available to all. Our mission is to help communities make great food choices by making it easy to choose tasty, healthy, convenient and truly affordable meals and groceries. Daily Table has just opened its second store. Its first (and this is another connection) was in Dorchester, MA, where I happened to spend the first two years of my life, and helped me learn how to properly pronounce cellar door as 'sell-ah doh-ah". A little more from their web site: Daily Table is a not-for-profit retail store that offers our community a variety of tasty, convenient and affordable foods that will help you feel and be your best; food that will keep you moving forward, not hold you back. We provide both “grab-n-go” ready to eat meals, and a selection of produce, bread, dairy and grocery items all at prices that will put a smile on your face, and designed to fit within every budget. Many of our items are prepared fresh daily in our own kitchen onsite. We offer an upbeat, clean and friendly retail store environment that is open to everyone in the community. We can offer these daily values by working with a large network of growers, supermarkets, manufacturers, and other suppliers who donate their excess, healthy food to us, or provide us with special buying opportunities. In this way, we are able to keep prices affordable for all our customers. Our meals are priced to compete with fast food options, making it easier for families to eat healthier within their means. And all the food in our store is informed by guidelines set for us by a leading group of nutrition experts, which makes it easy for our customers to make great food choices. The store is indeed a non-profit, which focuses on stocking food that has passed by its “sell-by” date, often an arbitrary or overly conservative expiration date for food. It is, of course important for there to be such a date on food – after all, nobody wants to spread purple, yellow, and green (regular) cream cheese on their bagel, which itself should NOT have tendrils and the ability to walk away under its own power. We’re all justifiably risk-averse when it comes to food spoilage (and I just made you that much more risk-averse, didn’t I?). But on the other side of the coin, there’s this interesting fact: Sell-By dates result in over 160 billion pounds of healthy food, discarded each year in the US. The original plan called for Daily Table to sell food that was past the sell-by date but carefully curated to be edible and healthy. But due to a ruling by the Boston Public Health Commission, it was determined that it was illegal to sell any food past its sell-by date. That triggered threat almost derailed Rauch and the Daily Table initiative. Their response: intercept food that is nearing its expiry date and sell it fast, and sell it very inexpensively. I suggest you read the story – the company has done a lot of creative things to assure its mission – including offering cooking classes and working on prepared meals, to increase the nutritional ‘capability’ of their low-income customers. It’s always interesting when a project management class yields a connection like this to a real (and real interesting - and appetizing) business story. |
