Daily Table Offers a Hand, Not a Hand-Out with Doug Rauch, Founder and President of Daily Table

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Welcome to the Distinguished Podcast, produced by Boston University School of Hospitality Administration.
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I'm Arun Rupneja, Dean of the School, and I am pleased to welcome our guest, Dag Rao, who is the founder and president of Daily Table.
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Previously, he spent 31 years with the Trader Joe's company, the last 13 years as the president, helping grow the business from a small chain in Southern California to a nationally acclaimed retail success story.
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He was instrumental in developing their priced buying philosophy, their unique private label food program, and wrote and executed the business plan for expanding Trader Joe's nationally.
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Doug was a fellow at Harvard University's Advanced Leadership Initiative where he researched hunger, food insecurity, as well as where the idea for Daily Table was hatched.
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Doug has many honors in his career.
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Daily Table was established in 2012.
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It's a nonprofit community grocer dedicated to providing fresh, tasty, convenient, and nutritious food to communities most in need at prices everyone can afford.
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Welcome, Doug, to the Distinguished Podcast.
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It's great to be here.
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Thank you.
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So when senior executives leave one position, they go for another position and then another executive position.
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What inspired you to start Daily Table as the next chapter in your post-Trader Joe's life?
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Yeah, it's a great question.
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Because I'd been to a lot of retirements at Trader Joe's.
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And here's a company that wears a Hawaiian shirt, you know, famously as their as their uniform.
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And we'd all dress up in suits and it's felt like a funeral.
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And they'd start talking about what a good fellow he was, and he's sitting right there and he's dead.
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So I said, okay, look, you guys wear whatever you want.
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I'm wearing a Hawaiian shirt.
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And uh and second, this is a graduation.
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This is something we should be celebrating, not like mourning.
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But the reality is also I flunked retirement.
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I didn't really believe in retirement as a concept of uh uh more of a transition.
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So what I wasn't clear about in my mind when I uh retired from Trader Joe's was what's next.
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I thought I'd sit on boards and I'd do philanthropic work and maybe get engaged, but I really didn't have any other commercial business uh uh interest at the time.
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I happened right after I'd uh uh left Trader Joe's, ran across this opportunity you mentioned at Harvard, which is just in its first year at that time for this advanced leadership fellowship.
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And what I liked about it was that it was gathering a cohort of oh, 15 or 20 that uh were senior executives andor people in public service that wanted to give back in some way, that they were still feeling they had gas in their tank and they wanted to help tackle a social challenge.
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What particularly about the program attracted me was it was an attitude at the time that said, come utilize a university, and then stand and deliver in front of the faculty and your cohort.
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What are you gonna do about a problem?
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And I said, I like that.
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I'm re I'm ready to re-engage in something that's operational instead of just sitting on boards, which are fine, and I sit on a number, but there's something that for someone who's been an operator most of their life that's attractive about getting involved with that.
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So I had I had not actually sought going out into a nonprofit solution.
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I didn't really care if the solution was a for-profit or a nonprofit.
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It just so happened that uh for reasons that uh made sense in this marketplace, the tackling hunger is best done uh in the way we're doing it through a nonprofit structure.
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So first, uh just a very quick comment on your graduation from Taylor Joe's.
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Um we are in a university setting, so you just didn't graduate from one program, you are now getting a PhD.
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So I want to return back to the hunger and obesity problem.
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So how did you hone on these two issues that would be of interest to you?
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And how did you educate yourself on those issues?
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Yeah, that's a good question.
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It's a foundation foundational question to uh uh what I'm doing now.
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So when I joined this program, I had no idea what I wanted to do.
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I mean, there's so many social challenges in America, right?
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There's the environment and there's poverty and education, and just I mean, everywhere you look, there's there's a challenge that we could lean into.
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And as I was driving from my home in Newton into uh the campus in Cambridge, at that time, this is 2009, 2010, there was a billboard on the Mass Pike that said one in six are hungry in America.
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And I drove by that once or twice when it really hit me.
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It's like, that's 52 million Americans.
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Like, how's that possible?
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We're the richest nation in the history of the world in food production.
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My entire lifetime, we've been net exporters of millions of tons of food.
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So that we'd have 52 million Americans that are hungry and need something to eat.
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You know, I don't understand that.
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So I said, why don't I lean in to just try and figure this out?
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Maybe it's a distribution problem.
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Hey, I can maybe maybe maybe there's some thoughts I have on that.
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Maybe I can help.
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So that's where uh it really started.
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It started with this what is at the heart of this one in six, because it just felt uh one, a staggering number, and two, it felt like it flew in the face of all I knew about the food industry.
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So let's just uh jump into this a little bit more.
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When when you saw that billboard and you say 50 million Americans go hungry, um is it, and I and I think this is going to speak to what you're trying to do also, um, are they hungry in terms of just lacking food, or are they hungry in a sense that they are eating food which is full of calories and not nutritionally dense?
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Yeah, and that was the heart of my first real awakening to the problem, which was that I had thought that hungry meant a lack of calories.
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And I had, as a kid growing up in the 50s and 60s, had seen all the care-package commercials for helping feed the starving in India and Africa and save the children.
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And you know, so when I when you tell me that you know we got 50 million hungry people, I'm thinking of images of people that are starving.
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And as it turned out, of course, that frankly, obesity's the face of hunger in America.
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And it's because hunger isn't a shortage of calories, as you as you mentioned, it's really a shortage of nutrients.
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And so the solution then flips to a much more difficult one to solve, which is no longer is it about a full stomach, it's about a healthy meal.
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And the fact that we have, through various policies, whether it be subsidizing corn and the uh farm bill so that we can end up with high fructose corn syrup, which is ubiquitous now and uh adding calories and sweetener everywhere, that uh we end up with people that can get all the calories and more that they need, but it's in foods that are leading to tremendous health morbidity issues of diabetes and obesity and uh heart disease and hypertension.
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And so that was that was the first real awakening was that oh my gosh, hunger isn't what I thought it was.
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It's actually far more complex and more difficult.
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And then it's well, how could we provide a solution to nutritious food?
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And that was the next one.
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So I uh uh I reached out when I was at the Harvard program to the head of Feeding America, a woman by the name of Vicky Ascara, was the CEO at the time.
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And in the couple uh conversations I had with her, asked her, What's the number one problem you face?
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What's the biggest problem Feeding America faces?
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And she said, Oh, it's simple.
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Right now, this is the heart of the great uh uh recession, 38% of the population that qualifies for SNAP in our services don't use them.
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And when I asked, well, why is that?
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You know, I mean, is it because and I started then immediately going into my type A personality of solving it, of is it because you don't have enough locations, you don't have the money to market it, they're not aware of it, uh, language barriers, ice.
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I mean, she goes, whoa, whoa, whoa, slow down, Doug.
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Much simpler than that.
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They're ashamed.
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They're embarrassed.
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They don't want a handout.
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And that was a major aha moment for me because it had been one of the things we're actually in the uh uh the readings I was already doing at the Kenny School was this issue of the Maslow's hierarchy of needs around how profound human dignity and respect is.
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And that need for us to have a dignified sense of ourself is we're hungrier to keep our dignity many times than even our own health.
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And so that was the next big aha that led to the type of response that Daily Table was.
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So before uh we dig deeper into this issue, just in in case there are people who are listening who don't understand what is SNAP, can you just give a very brief uh synopsis of what that program is?
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Aaron Ross Powell, Jr.
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Yeah, SNAP, which is the supplemental nutritional assistance program, used to be most people would think of it as food stamps, and it's now electronic on an EBT, but it is uh support from the government to supplement a person's uh economics to be able to be spent on food.
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And it's somewhat limited and complicated.
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It's on a formula, how much you get depends upon uh uh your household size and your income and all that.
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But it also then is, uh, shall we say, controversial in what it covers and what it doesn't cover.
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And a lot of this came out of not surprisingly to people who are listening, wrangling around Congress and uh lobbying and special interest.
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So the thing about SNAP that drives me nuts is that uh soft drinks and chips are covered on it, but a hot rotisserie chicken or a hot soup off a soup tray at a supermarket isn't.
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And uh that's kind of like, huh?
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And so uh and so anyway, part of what we do at Daily Table was to craft a response to that, what I'll say, um internal inconsistency and craziness by having all of our food be snap eligible.
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And so even the foods we create in our kitchen, we then sell them refrigerated, so refrigerate, so our rotisserie chicken fully cooked, we put it in our refrigerated case because we put it out on the hot tray where all the other supermarkets do.
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SNAP doesn't cover it.
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It's that crazy.
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Trevor Burrus, Jr.: It is that's just unbelievable.
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Yeah.
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Um, I then want to go back to um uh the the challenge that you mentioned, which is um people are ashamed to buy use snap because I've seen a lot of grocery stores will accept SNAP as well.
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And then you know, they they were also accept for sodas and all the other beverages.
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And I believe there was a very big UN cry anytime any government tried to stop it from being used for these um uh calorie-rich food.
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Um but so how did you solve think about solving the issue of this shame or loss of face in people?
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Aaron Ross Powell Yeah.
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And so you know, uh I think it was Abraham Maslow, again, the same Maslow at Harvey that said that uh if you're a hammer, all the world's a nail.
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So I came out of retail, so of course the solution was retail.
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Um I make fun of myself that way, but I do think there's something in the retail model.
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The beauty of retail is that you've got to earn the patronage of the customer.
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So in retail, it's voluntary exchange.
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None of us shop at a Trader Joe's, a Whole Foods, a Stop and Shop, a Shaw's, wherever it is we are, because we're forced to.
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We choose to go there.
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So if we could craft a business that people would choose to come to and then sell them healthy nutritional food at a deep discount that was affordable to them, then we provide an opportunity for them to have a dignified shop because they have the power of the purse.
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Because then no longer are they feeling beholden to us, but we've got to earn their patronage every day because they're choosing us.
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And that's what I liked about that.
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One is we've got to set our standard such that we have what they want in the way they want it at a price that they think it's worth their month, their hard-earned money.
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And then it also at the same time creates for us a secondary gain, which is one of the big problems of every hunger relief uh effort to date is it's not scalable.
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There's not a food bank or f or food pantry that's scalable.
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And much of it is because they have no revenue generating, it's all a philanthropic black hole.
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Not saying that it doesn't do good, it just means they generate no revenue.
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All of their costs has to be borne by the philanthropic community.
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So our model would be: what if we crafted a business that could get the majority of its funding by the delivery of its mission instead of simply for the delivery of its mission?
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And if we put the stores in the right spots in the inner city, our customers that come shop with us, every time they buy something, we're delivering on our mission.
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And every time they buy something, they're actually funding the mission, which becomes then a virtuous cycle that then allows us, right now, for instance, we cover about two-thirds of our expenses, which means that for every funder that gives us a dollar, they get a two-for-one automatic match every single time.
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So we hope to get that, by the way, into the 80s over time as we both get our efficiencies and our scale up.
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So retail is something that does a couple other things.
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One is that we know from studies by Cornell and others that if you give a kid an apple in a school lunch line, it almost certainly got to move the trash can to the end of the line because that's where the apple goes.
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If you nudge them toward a decision to choose the apple, they'll eat it.
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To choose regular milk instead of chocolate milk, to choose a healthier meal, if you nudge them to where they have a psychological engagement, they'll use it.
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So one of the things about retail is when they come in, if they see something that maybe they don't know if they like it, but it looks like the price is right or it's good, or there's some produce item that's priced so that it's attractive, if they buy it, they're psychologically engaged.
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They'll almost certainly at least use that up.
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They may or may not come back to buy it again, but at least you've got the engagement of knowing if they buy it, they're probably going to use it.
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So that's a very, very elegant solution, um, Doug, that if, you know, like you said, the child, if the child chooses the apple, then he or she is likely to eat it.
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But if you just give the apple, then they just throw it in the trash.
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But uh this uh retail solution, then you know, there there are many different aspects to it.
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And I want to start off by asking um the reason part of the reason why high-fat and high-calorie-rich foods are sold much more in greater quantities because they are tastier.
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So you would rather eat fried food than something that is baked.
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So how does your store, how does um it try to move people away from those calorie-rich foods?
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Aaron Ross Powell Yeah.
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And that's that, by the way, is a problem for all of America.
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That's not a problem of, quote, the poor or the economically challenged.
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That's not the that's not a food insecurity problem.
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We all as Americans, because our brains are wired for calorically dense foods, uh, we none of us we still have the genetics that say we don't know when the next woolly mammoth kill will come along, so you gorge on caloric intake.
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And the challenge is we can get a woolly mammoth three times a day now.
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And so hence we got we got the challenges we have.
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So here's what here's what I can say.
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We were one of the first, matter of fact, the first rollout here in the city of Boston, going back five years ago, to the Double Up Food Buck program.
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And Double Up Food Bucks is a program that now is uh uh sponsored and funded by the uh USDA and the City of Boston.
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And uh it allows for someone on Snap to come in and get fresh fruits and vegetables and frozen for half price.
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So it basically removes the economic barrier.
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And this originally started in in uh farmers' markets and now has expanded to a number of uh retail sites, of which Daily Table uh is one of those.
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And when this happened for the first year, because we uh are a store where uh we are a membership store, membership's free, it's open to anyone, and we don't take any personal information other than you put in some identifier.
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It's often a cell phone number that you punch in at a at a uh at the register and a keypad.
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Um, we had data on every single customer from the time we opened.
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What they bought, how they paid for it, how often they shopped with us, et cetera.
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We didn't know who that customer was, we didn't know your name, didn't know your address, so it was completely randomized, but we had that information specific to that number.
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So one of the researchers at the Friedman School at Tufts, uh doing a doctoral uh program, said, I'd love to go in and see what was the effect of double-up food bucks.
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So let's go and look at the year before, follow all the data through to the year after.
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What um Sarah John's her name.
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Sarah John found that uh by introducing double-up food bucks, the average SNAP uh customer of ours shopped with us 15 percent more often and bought is either 24 or 27 percent more fresh fruits and vegetables on every visit, which, as you know, in the world of nutrition and dietitians is a significant increase.
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That's not just a rounding error.
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To be able to say that it is shopping 15 percent more often, and in every one of those visits, you're buying 24 or 27 percent more fresh fruits and vegetables goes to the heart, to me, of answering: can you move people away from a diet that's unhealthy towards a healthier diet if you remove the economic barrier?
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And the answer I think we can show with impact and metrics is yes.
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That doesn't mean they aren't still having soda, doesn't mean that they aren't.
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And by the way, Daily Table's goal here would be to democratize access to nutrition so that regardless of your economic status, you have the same opportunities to make the same healthy choices as any other American, regardless of economic status.
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Whether you choose to do that or not, that's your your decision.
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And we're not the food police, you know, we simply are there providing opportunity.
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Right.
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And I think a lot of people don't really understand the concept that healthy food is a preserver of the rich.
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I think it's uh healthier food is more expensive, fresh food is more expensive to buy, and and uh so there is this big economic divide between who can buy healthy food and who cannot buy.
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So this is great.
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Now I want to uh just ask a little bit more about the Double Up Box program.
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So this is a government program, and can they use this program anywhere?
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And what all can they buy with doubling up?
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Yeah, so Double Up Food Box is a program that's um uh authorized and run with the USDA, and it uh is limited in its application.
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I think that they're looking to expand it in the current farm bill that it will be up this year.
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But right now it's only offered, I believe, at Daily Table and maybe six or seven other retailers, no major supermarket chains.
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Uh and what you can buy on is any fresh produce item or you know, fruit or vegetable, and frozen fruit or vegetable.
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So frozen blueberries, for instance, if you do a smoothie or something, you can come get that at half price.
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Um it is something where what happens is at the time when they buy it, they when they use their SNAP like a debit card, that they then only charged half for the fresh fruits and vegetables.
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So that takes some internal programming we had to do with USDA.
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So they're charged half, of which then that half we make up initially until the USDA reimburses us.
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So uh we threw a program called Gus NIP, named for Gus Schumacher, who is very well known in the uh the food and security circles and here in Massachusetts, a wonderful man passed away a couple years ago.
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And the NIP, I believe, is the nutritional incentive program.
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So it's a combination of an award honoring his efforts to get nutrition uh out there.
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So that's great.
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Now, if um if um you are you you are subsidizing one-third of the cost.
00:20:25.599 --> 00:20:34.640
So it's two-thirds of the cost being paid, and and for fresh produce and fresh fruits and vegetables, they're only paying half, so they're paying one-third of what the price would be.
00:20:35.200 --> 00:20:36.880
Well, they're yeah, they're Essentially.
00:20:36.960 --> 00:20:38.319
Trevor Burrus, Jr.: It's an interesting way to look at it.
00:20:38.480 --> 00:20:41.920
So for instance, our bananas are 39 cents a pound every day to anyone that walks in.
00:20:42.160 --> 00:20:42.240
Right.
00:20:42.400 --> 00:20:44.880
And if you're on Snap, you're getting them for 19 cents a pound.
00:20:45.119 --> 00:20:50.799
So we have Little Leaf Farms, the wonderful uh packaged salad that's hydroponically grown just 20 miles from here.
00:20:50.960 --> 00:20:54.240
It's honestly the freshest-tasting lettuce you're ever going to get.
00:20:54.400 --> 00:21:01.680
So we sell that for$1.99 every day to every customer who comes in the store, and it's only 99 cents for bills on Snap.
00:21:01.839 --> 00:21:04.160
So we have we have reduced that.
00:21:04.319 --> 00:21:30.559
And yes, there there is a subsidy that's there, but I think that at the end of the day, what the challenge in front of America and in Daily Table is that we've got one in six Americans, because although COVID has ended as a pandemic and is even ending as an epidemic, the like a large boat that's gone by, the wake behind that boat is now hitting the shore.
00:21:30.720 --> 00:21:34.480
And we still have one in six households that are food insecure in Massachusetts.
00:21:34.720 --> 00:21:46.319
We have the reduction, as you know, of SNAP benefits, we have all these other things that are being withdrawn at a time when we haven't had the economic support in face of the largest food inflation in 50 years.
00:21:46.559 --> 00:21:51.759
So this part of the population that we're serving is getting a double whammy on all fronts.
00:21:51.920 --> 00:21:58.559
And so to be able to come to a daily table and get, quote, subsidized product, I think is really, really critical.
00:21:58.720 --> 00:22:05.920
And so one of the things that we're talking about is that we I'd say is that I would say probably I'd guess nine out of ten, maybe eight out of ten of our customers have no idea we're a nonprofit.
00:22:06.079 --> 00:22:15.920
We're just the corner market that is there, that has friendly people, bright and colorful and easy to shop at, uh, and has good product at great prices.
00:22:16.799 --> 00:22:18.559
That's very, very impressive.
00:22:18.960 --> 00:22:24.160
There was a hurricane in Louisiana many years ago, hurricane, I believe it was Katrina.
00:22:24.400 --> 00:22:36.559
And even though the United States has a federal agency which is in charge of delivering aid to those areas, I think water is one which is a bulky, low-price, bulky item.
00:22:36.640 --> 00:22:42.720
And Walmart was able to get water to those areas much quicker than this dedicated federal agency.
00:22:42.960 --> 00:22:52.480
So my question is: are you partnering with any of these big like Costco, Walmart, SamsClub, or even Trader Joe's, for example?
00:22:52.720 --> 00:23:01.359
Are any of those chains interested in partnering to sort of help drive down the cost of products that you're selling in the in the stores?
00:23:01.440 --> 00:23:14.480
Aaron Ross Powell So we partner with a number of companies in the food business, not so much at the retail level, because mostly for retail, people uh when you when you look at donating product, it's usually because it's short or at its code date.
00:23:14.640 --> 00:23:27.519
And we made the determination some time ago that due to that same dignity reason we just mentioned, we don't want to sell product past its code date, even though it's legal within the state of Massachusetts to do so, as long as it's still healthy and fresh.
00:23:27.920 --> 00:23:29.440
And by the way, it's a whole nother conversation.
00:23:29.599 --> 00:23:33.759
You could take a whole nother podcast around the confusion on code dates we won't go into.
00:23:34.400 --> 00:23:42.559
But um, because of that, we didn't want we and we actually had uh, for instance, Wegmans came and said, we really want to support this, and we looked at it.
00:23:42.640 --> 00:23:47.359
And because of our nutritional guidelines, we don't take anything that is high sodium, high sugar.
00:23:47.599 --> 00:23:47.839
Right.
00:23:48.160 --> 00:23:49.920
We want to be a force for good.
00:23:50.079 --> 00:23:54.319
We want to make sure that the product we're getting out into the community is actually gonna benefit their health.
00:23:54.640 --> 00:24:01.839
And so when Wegmund looked at that, they said, like 20% of the product we're gonna give you actually meets your guidelines here.
00:24:02.000 --> 00:24:02.640
We can't help.
00:24:02.799 --> 00:24:04.480
So we go upstream to the manufacturers.
00:24:04.559 --> 00:24:19.759
So we have crafted some great relationships with food, both the fishing companies, manufacturers, farmers, wholesalers, uh growers, both around the state and around the country.
00:24:20.079 --> 00:24:32.319
So the the next question I want to ask is and and this is something that I've I've actually was an observer to a conversation between my son, who's a college student and my wife, and they were discussing uh laundry pods.
00:24:32.400 --> 00:24:39.920
And my son went to the local uh drugstore and he tried to buy laundry, uh the detergent pods.
00:24:40.559 --> 00:24:43.599
And it turns out that my wife was horrified at the cost.
00:24:43.839 --> 00:24:49.839
So and she said, Well, I can buy three times that number and half the cost at Costco's.
00:24:50.000 --> 00:24:54.559
And so the instant reaction from my son was, but that is so terrible.
00:24:54.799 --> 00:25:02.480
The poor people who are around this store are coming and buying these detergent pods at such a high price.
00:25:02.720 --> 00:25:08.480
And here we have the money, we can get the Costco membership, drive there, and we buy it one-third.
00:25:08.720 --> 00:25:21.920
So I think one of the issues with if you're economically disadvantaged is you cannot go and stock up on some things for three months because you need to be able to buy everything that that you need for that week.
00:25:22.160 --> 00:25:33.039
And so how is there any system in place that you are trying to get people to be able to buy a bag of 25 pounds of flour versus just five pounds at a higher price?
00:25:33.599 --> 00:25:34.880
Or do you see that happening?
00:25:34.960 --> 00:25:37.200
Aaron Ross Powell So it's a great question, bringing up.
00:25:37.359 --> 00:25:51.359
And it's and it's one that we can spend a lot more time than we have, uh, which has to do with just the inequities and in and inequalities in pricing, distribution, inner city models of return, all that stuff.
00:25:51.680 --> 00:25:56.240
What Daily Table tries to do is most importantly, is provide affordable nutrition.
00:25:56.559 --> 00:26:03.200
And whether we sell, uh and right now, for instance, you can get 20-pound bags of rice, uh, great price at Daily Table.
00:26:03.359 --> 00:26:08.079
But whether it's a two-pound bag of lentils, we want to price out in a way that it's a great deal.
00:26:08.319 --> 00:26:21.039
So it's not like, oh, you got to go to Costco and get their 25-pound bag, because as you said rightly, many of our customers don't even have a car, let alone the economics, how they're gonna get there, and then what are they gonna do with their 25-pound bag, uh, you know, carrying it on the bus, et cetera.
00:26:21.200 --> 00:26:44.480
So I think that that the challenge is to meet our customers' needs where they are and providing them the true access to a varied and healthy diet, so that they don't need to go to a Costco, a Trader Joe's, et cetera, in order to get those economic uh advantages.
00:26:44.720 --> 00:27:00.559
And certainly one of the challenges with Costco is, I'll just say personally, um now that I'm an empty nester, is the size of packages alone can uh, if you're not careful, lead to a lot more food waste and or just the economic out outlay is much greater.
00:27:00.799 --> 00:27:03.279
So what we try to do is have it so that we're a neighborhood store.
00:27:03.359 --> 00:27:05.759
They can shop with us once or twice a week or more.
00:27:05.920 --> 00:27:14.880
They can get what they need and they can get it in the size that's appropriate to them, but they also get it at pricing that is 25, 30 percent less than they'd find out in the regular grocery industry.
00:27:14.960 --> 00:27:18.400
Aaron Powell I have a few more just a quick fun questions.
00:27:18.720 --> 00:27:20.799
So what's your favorite healthy go-to food?
00:27:21.359 --> 00:27:23.839
My favorite healthy go-to food.
00:27:24.160 --> 00:27:33.119
Um honestly, it'd be a fresh smoothie, something with made like blueberries and kale and uh banana, and I throw walnuts in and some things like that.
00:27:33.279 --> 00:27:34.559
But it's it's fresh.
00:27:34.640 --> 00:27:41.519
It's what I usually have each morning, and I find that without the the uh grains and carbs, it just feels better and I last longer.
00:27:41.680 --> 00:27:43.759
So that that'd be that'd be my answer now.
00:27:43.839 --> 00:27:44.880
Aaron Ross Powell Fantastic.
00:27:45.200 --> 00:27:48.559
If you could have dinner with any four people, who would they be and why?
00:27:48.960 --> 00:27:49.759
Oh, geez.
00:27:50.480 --> 00:27:55.680
Uh I have no idea.
00:27:55.839 --> 00:27:57.359
There's so many people that come to mind.
00:27:57.440 --> 00:28:06.799
I mean, there's everything from, you know, the spiritual and religious traditions which you'd want to draw from, uh which I think would be fun, by the way, to get a Jesus and a Buddha together in a room and have them have a conversation.
00:28:07.039 --> 00:28:14.400
Uh but then second would be the things like, you know, the people that truly have been inventors and amazing.
00:28:14.640 --> 00:28:19.839
I mean, the the obvious stereotype is an Einstein, but there's so many other inventors that are around that are fun.
00:28:20.319 --> 00:28:25.279
George Washington Carver, by the way, uh invented more products and did more with peanut butter.
00:28:25.359 --> 00:28:26.000
He did magic.
00:28:26.240 --> 00:28:29.759
It would be fun to get him and see how he thought and what he did.
00:28:30.000 --> 00:28:42.160
Uh I don't even know how to honestly, in a short time, answer that question, other than there is no shortage of fascinating people when you look back, both in today alive and going back through time.
00:28:43.440 --> 00:28:52.000
If you could get one person to visit Daily Table so that they could see firsthand how this business could make an even larger impact, who would that be?
00:28:53.359 --> 00:28:56.960
From the uh uh shameless plug uh Mackenzie Scott.
00:28:57.440 --> 00:29:01.119
I'd love for her to come come see what we're doing and see if it's of interest to her.
00:29:01.839 --> 00:29:04.160
We should send this uh podcast to her.
00:29:04.720 --> 00:29:06.240
Thank you, Doug, for joining us.
00:29:06.319 --> 00:29:12.960
It was really an interesting conversation, and I hope we do that more often since there are so many other topics we need to discuss in more depth.
00:29:13.279 --> 00:29:14.480
Thanks for this opportunity.
00:29:14.720 --> 00:29:14.960
Thank you.
00:29:15.039 --> 00:29:16.160
It was great.