遗弃食品撑起的全民杂货店

如果你不想惹道格·劳赫不高兴，就别总提“食物残渣”，叫遗弃食品就好。“在美国没人会想来一份食物残渣，” Daily Table创始人兼总裁劳赫表示。

他说得没错。要把遗弃食物当成商机，最关键就是转换思维方式。通过在马萨诸塞州多切斯特开办非营利杂货店Daily Table，劳赫的目标是解决美国食品界最大的两个问题：遗弃食品和尽可能实惠地获得营养。

顾客在Daily Table能以大折扣购买食物，折扣都靠劳赫跟团队跟食品生产商谈判。折扣商品一般是制造商卖不出去的，要么因为库存积压，要么就是临近“保质期”或“最佳品尝日期”。劳赫此前曾在乔氏超市担任管理人员，他表示一般的杂货店老板只愿意进保质期剩30天以上的食品。Daily Table团队不愿任由食物遗弃，所以尽力收集，也从各地杂货店收货。目前劳赫的团队已经回收130万磅重的食物。

Daily Table售卖的食品中20%至25%是通过捐赠，剩下的部分是通过特殊途径购得。劳赫表示，他之所以敢买下一大盘已经发软的鳄梨，主要因为有充足人手从中挑出好坏（主要感谢每周主动帮忙的75位志愿者）。

“连食品仓库不敢用的食品我们也能利用好，”他表示。

通过这一模式，Daily Table的很多食品能实现全马萨诸塞州最低价，甚至是全国最低价。跟他交谈的那天正好来了一批捐赠来的有机谷牛奶，一加仑一桶卖99美分，这批牛奶离最后销售日期只剩两天。（但价格实在太实惠，迅速一售而空。）

Daily Table还主要卖一些没商标的麦片，价格63美分，金枪鱼50美分一罐，香蕉29美分一磅。不过，劳赫表示并不是所有商品都能买到。例如店里就没有润滑油和调味料。

不过劳赫表示，店里所有的商品都经过营养专家许可。每件商品都考虑了儿童和家庭的需要。而且所有食品价格都很低，适合领食品券的人们。

一开始按劳赫计划，商品中更大比例应该来自捐赠，从杂货店收购已经过期而不是临近过期的食品，其实很多过期食品完全没问题只是消费者不愿意买。“把这么多完好的食物扔进垃圾箱真是犯罪，”他表示，“食物是很宝贵的资源。”

但跟当地社区沟通后劳赫发现，人们最大的担心还是来自对保质期的误解。人们总在问是不是一定安全。跟普遍观点不一样的是，“最佳品尝日期”和“保质”规定的并非食物食用截止日期，也并非食品安全的保证。只有一个例外就是婴儿配方奶粉，联邦法律没有强制规定。其他食物上的日期意思是在此之后食物质量无法保持“最佳”。很多情况下食物过期很久仍然可以使用，不过通常商店都会扔掉。

不过既然大众如此担心，劳赫决定店里还是不卖过期食品了，所以店里的食品“完全不会像次品”。随之他也将食品来源从杂货店转向厂商。为什么不直接免费派发呢？劳赫表示之所以Daily Table要坚持售卖而不是派发，是因为绝大多数人都不喜欢接受施舍。来店里的顾客多是工薪阶层但经济上不宽裕，只能忍受“食品不安全”，即吃饱肚子但无法保证营养。

“我们面对的问题主要是尊严还是质量，”他表示，“我们的核心观点是尽可能提供服务，但不能用施舍的姿态。”

同时劳赫也在努力让Daily Table实现收支平衡以维持经营。“食物仓库派发食物是有资金支持的，”他指出。自从2015年6月Daily Table开店，他就希望“通过实现目标实现获得收入。”如今店面经营的资金有75%来自售货收入，基本模式确保了收支平衡。

不过Daily Table的效益并不如之前劳赫预期，因为实际上购买的食物比较多，没那么多捐赠。“我们发现模式的关键在于量，”他表示。“现在我们采用多开店战略。”他表示，厨房供应业务在亏钱，但是模式里不可或缺的一部分。劳赫表示，随着经济进入下行区间，时间已经很紧迫。方便食品物美价廉，可以帮助贫困社区维持营养线。

劳赫相信只要再多开一家店，Daily Table的厨房供应业务就能打平。他已经选好了第二家店的地址，很快波士顿就能迎来Daily Table新店了。（财富中文网)

译者：Pessy

审稿：夏林

If you really want to make Doug Rauch happy, stop using the term "food waste." Just call it wasted food. "No one in America wants a second helping of food waste," the founder and president of Daily Table says.

He has a point. Changing the way we think about food is central to seeing its challenges as a business opportunity. At Daily Table, a nonprofit grocery store in Dorchester, Mass., Rauch aims to solve two of America’s biggest food problems: wasted food and access to affordable nutrition.

At Daily Table, customers buy products at a deep discount that Rauch and his team have secured from food producers. They're often goods the manufacturers can’t sell because they’re either excess inventory or are fast approaching "sell by" or "best by" dates. Rauch, a former Trader Joe’s executive, says conventional grocers won’t take a product unless there’s more than 30 days left on the code. Instead of it going into the trash, the Daily Table team picks it up or has it shipped to them. To date, Rauch's employees have recovered 1.3 million pounds of food.

Between 20% and 25% of what Daily Table sells has been donated; it purchases the rest through special arrangements. Rauch says he can buy a pallet of avocados that are going soft because he has the labor (thanks to a group of 75 volunteers that help out every week) to sort out the bad from the good.

“We’re able to utilize products that even food banks can’t utilize,” he says.

This model has allowed Daily Table to set what Rauch says are the lowest prices in Massachusetts, or perhaps the country, on many items. The day he and I talked he was selling a gallon of Organic Valley milk in his store for 99 cents after receiving a large donation of milk that had two days left on its sell-by date. (It was priced so low to make sure the entire inventory was gone by then.)

Daily Table regularly carries staples like off-brand Cheerios for 63 cents, cans of tuna for 50 cents, and bananas at 29 cents a pound. Rauch, however, says customers can’t expect to get all of their staples at the store. You can’t find oils and spices, for example.

Still, all of the options inside the store are informed by nutrition experts, Rauch says. Everything is presented with children and families in mind. And all of the products are priced low enough to accommodate recipients of food stamps.

Rauch had initially planned to have a much higher donation rate by accepting food from grocers that was past, not just near, its sell-by date—goods that were perfectly fine but that customers would no longer buy. “It’s a crime that we’re just throwing all of this into landfills,” he says. “Food is a precious resource.”

But in conversations with the local community, Rauch found that one of the enduring concerns was a misunderstanding around code dates. People kept asking if the food was safe. Contrary to widespread belief, "best by" and "sell by" dates are neither expiration dates nor markers of food safety. With the exception of infant formula, they are not federally mandated. The stamps are supposed to indicate the point after which "peak quality" can no longer be guaranteed. Much of the time, the food is edible well past the date—that is, until stores throw it away.

At any rate, the popular misunderstanding led Rauch to decide not to sell anything in his store that was past its sell-by or best-by date—nothing, he says, that would “make it seem like a second-rate product.” So he shifted his sourcing one notch upstream from grocery stores to manufacturers.

Why not just give the food away? Rauch says Daily Table sells it because most of the population does not want a handout. His customers are typically working but economically challenged and therefore "food insecure"—able to eat but not in a nutritious way.

“We ran up against this issue of dignity versus quality,” he says, “and that one of our core fundamental beliefs is that we need to deliver whatever services we have in a manner that is not just a handout.”

Rauch also needs Daily Table to break even to be self-sufficient. “Food banks get funding for the mission,” he notes. From the day the store opened in June 2015, he wanted Daily Table to be a business that received “funding by the delivery of its mission.” Today the store is about 75% self-funded; the balance comes from foundations.

Daily Table's margins are lower than Rauch initially thought they would be because the company ended up buying more food rather than receiving donations. “We now realize it’s a model based on volume,” he says. “We’re a multi-unit strategy.” Its commissary kitchen, he says, is a money-losing endeavor but integral to the model. As you move down the economic rung, Rauch says, you have less time. Prepared foods give the community an affordable, nutritionally beneficial option.

Rauch believes Daily Table's commissary can break even if it serves one more store. He already has the second location picked out—expect a Daily Table to arrive inside Boston city limits soon.