Green Price Chopper Store Opens in Binghamton, N.Y.

The latest Price Chopper Supermarket, which opened Feb. 26 in Binghamton, N.Y., has been designed and engineered to achieve silver-level certification in the U.S. Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) program. Two key examples of the sustainable features included in the 52,000-square-foot store are precast concrete walls that reduced construction waste, and skylights in the roof to allow for natural light to flood the store. Additionally, sensors detect when or if electric lighting is needed to supplement the natural light; freezers and cases are lit with LED bulbs, which burn brightly while consuming less energy and last longer than traditional fluorescent bulbs; and glass doors in the frozen and refrigerated departments help keep the cold air in, conserving energy and maintaining a comfortable temperature in the aisles.

“We focused our sustainable efforts to make the shopping experience as pleasurable as possible, while reducing our utility consumption and thereby better controlling costs at the consumer level,” noted Jerry Golub, president and CEO of Schenectady, N.Y.-based Golub Corp., which owns and operates 128 Price Chopper grocery stores in New York, Vermont, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts and New Hampshire.

Beyond its energy-efficient equipment and technology, the store offers an expanded variety of dairy, frozen foods; gluten-free, natural and organic products; and beer, along with fresh custom-cut meat, more than 500 varieties of fresh fruit and vegetables, many sourced from local farms, fresh fish and shellfish from around the world in a full-service seafood department, a full service deli and sandwich shop, a Market Center Café seating area, Central Market Classics “Decadent Dessert” program, a Central Market Florist Shop including a dedicated kiosk for chain’s exclusive ordering website, a full-service pharmacy with a private consultation office among other programs and amenities, and more checkouts and double the number of EZ self-scanners to increase speed of service on the front end.

Golub’s 23,000 teammates collectively own more than 50 percent of the company’s privately held stock, making it one of the nation’s largest privately held corporations that is predominantly employee-owned.