Food Waste Class tours Daily Table in Dorchester
By Christina Grace Setio
Students in our Special Topics in Food Waste class (MET ML 702) recently had the great opportunity to tour and observe the Daily Table store in Dorchester, Boston.
Daily Table is a not-for-profit retail store that provides healthy and affordable food while respecting their customers of diverse community. The Dorchester and Roxbury store are expecting a third location in Boston, expanding with a mission to “help communities make great choices by making it easy to choose tasty, healthy, convenient and truly affordable meals and groceries”. Founded by the former president of Trader Joe’s, Doug Rauch, the store provides fresh produce, proteins, bread, dairy, quality frozen products, grab-to-go meals (prepared daily) and dry food products within an accessible price range. The store aims to promote better eating habits alongside tackling food waste, by repurposing perfectly edible food that was overproduced or rejected due to aesthetic imperfections.
Their delicious and nutritious grab-to-go meals are prepared daily by chefs in store at the Dorchester location. These prepared meals are made with lower sodium and sugar level, also a transparent ingredients labeling. Meals that were not sold will be given out for free at the end of each day.
The class then proceeded to visit the kitchen, talked to the chefs, staffs, meet the volunteers, learn their business model and best of all, try their delicious products!
Partnering with Codman Square Health Center, free cooking classes are held regularly to educate the community on a better diet. Variety of topics offered include; Healthy cooking on a budget, Diabetes friendly cooking, Cooking with your kids, Cooking for weight management, Heart healthy cooking and more.
This was our first MET ML 702 Special Topics in Food Waste class trip, a great experience learning straight from people within the industry, seeing firsthand how we can tackle social and environmental issue concurrently. Discussing some of the business’s strategy, organization, and struggles but also the ever so rewarding, expression of customers bringing home full bags of fresh produce for their families.
More information can be found on their website: www.dailytable.org