Dive Brief:
- Daily Table, a nonprofit grocer that sells food at steep discounts to low-income consumers in the Boston area, announced Friday it would close all four of its stores.
- Founded in 2012 by former Trader Joe’s President Doug Rauch, Daily Table relied on philanthropic support and discounted food from suppliers to offer a full range of groceries at a 30% markdown.
- The organization noted on its website that challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, rising food prices and a difficult funding environment all contributed to its decision to discontinue operations.
Dive Insight:
Daily Table had grown steadily in the 10 years since it opened its first location and came to serve more than 3 million shoppers across its four locations, according to its post. Its stores offered a full range of groceries, including prepared meals, at discount prices.
But a combination of industry challenges and difficulty raising money cut its aspirations short.
“Without immediate funding to bridge us through 2025, we cannot continue,” Daily Table wrote on its website. “After careful consideration, we have come to the heartbreaking conclusion that we can no longer continue operations.”
Rauch started the nonprofit after spending more than 30 years at Trader Joe’s as a way to address food insecurity and waste.
“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,” Rauch told The Boston Globe in 2015.
The nonprofit chain's model relied on donations, surplus food from manufacturers and sales from each of the stores.
“Our goal, if we’re lucky, is to break even,” Rauch told the newspaper.
Daily Table’s first store opened in Dorchester, Massachusetts, in 2015, and the nonprofit opened a new location in the state every two to three years after that. It set up a teaching kitchen that offered free cooking and nutrition classes for shoppers, and employed an executive chef who helped create healthy prepared meals. When its first store opened, entrees were priced between $1.79 and $4.99, according to The Boston Globe.
Daily Table said in its post that it plans to offer steep discounts as its stores liquidate inventory ahead of their closing. The Dorchester, Roxbury and Salem stores closed Sunday and the Cambridge location may remain open through Monday, the grocer posted on its website.
“We understand that this comes at a time when other food access resources and organizations are at risk, which makes this news even more difficult to share,” the nonprofit wrote. “We hope that those who have been generous to Daily Table will continue investing in other organizations to meet the ongoing need.”
