
Doug Rauch on How Customer Feedback Built Daily Table
In this Yale interview from Creating Change through Social Entrepreneurship, Doug Rauch, founder of the grocery venture Daily Table, discusses how listening to customers shaped his approach to fighting food waste and food deserts. Rauch describes how his organization repurposes surplus food from retailers to sell affordable, nutritious groceries in underserved neighborhoods, and explains how direct feedback from shoppers informed decisions about pricing, product selection, and store operations. The conversation illustrates a broader theme in the course: that social entrepreneurs succeed by staying closely attuned to the people they serve rather than assuming they already know the right solution. Students gain a practitioner's perspective on running a retail-based social enterprise built around dignity and access to healthy food.