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Store to Sell Edible "Expired" Food Opens Next Year

By Cheri Cheng | Update Date: Sep 24, 2013 02:57 PM EDT

The next food craze might be starting in a year. The ex-president of Trader Joe's, Doug Rauch, recently announced his next innovative idea to reduce the number of food waste. Rauch plans on reusing food products that are just slightly past their sell-by dates but are still safe to eat. These repurposed food products will be sold at his newest store located in Dorchester, MA at reduced prices.

Rauch's latest idea could help with the global food waste. The project, titled the Daily Table, could change how people use and buy foods. On a global scale, around one third of food goes to waste annually. In the United States, around 40 percent of food gets trashed due to sell-by and confusing expiration dates.  According to a Harvard and the National Resources Defense Council report, people tend to misread the dates on products, causing them to throw out perfectly edible food products.

"It's the idea about how to bring affordable nutrition to the underserved in our cities. It basically tries to utilize this 40 percent of this food that is wasted. This is, to a large degree, either excess, overstocked, wholesome food that's thrown out by grocers, etc. ... at the end of the day because of the sell-by dates," explained Rauch in an interview with NPR. "Or [it's from] growers that have product that's nutritionally sound, perfectly good, but cosmetically blemished or not quite up for prime time. [So we] bring this food down into a retail environment where it can become affordable nutrition."

According to Rauch, the Daily Table will be a mix of a grocery store and a restaurant. He plans on offering the food products at competitive fast food prices. When asked about his concerns over whether or not people will try foods that they think are expired, Rauch explained that his program is about educating people about these dates. For example, if a product has a sell by date of September 24, it means that it is still safe to eat a few days after that date.

Rauch added, "This is about trying to tackle a very large social challenge we have that is going to create a health care tsunami in cost if we don't do something about it. I don't regard Daily Table as the only solution - there are wonderful innovative ideas out there - but I certainly think it is part of and is an innovative approach to trying to find our way to a solution."

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