Kenny Family ShopRites of Delaware Join Food Recovery Challenge

The Kenny Family ShopRites of Delaware have joined the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Food Recovery Challenge, in which participants divert excess food to feed families and aid the environment. Among the first organizations in the First State to join the challenge, ShopRite kicked off the initiative, which will benefit the Food Bank of Delaware, on Nov. 15, also known as America Recycles Day.

This program will enable twice-weekly donations of both perishable and nonperishable items to the food bank from all five Kenny ShopRites of Delaware.

“We have been working with the Food Bank of Delaware and other charities to provide food to those in need since we opened in 1995,” noted Melissa Kenny of Kenny Family ShopRites of Delaware in Wilmington. “Through the Food Recovery Challenge, we are finding new ways to reduce our environmental footprint and help those across Delaware through increased food donations.”

The Kennys have also supported the food bank through the year-round, community-based hunger-fighting ShopRite Partners In Caring initiative, which gives $3 million annually to local food banks.

As well as the food that the donations will keep from the waste stream each year, the EPA has recognized the organization’s operations for providing Delaware shoppers with an eco-friendly shopping experience.

For instance, Kenny Family ShopRites compost all organic materials generated in each store, with the help of Marlton, N.J.-based Organic Diversion. The materials are sent to nearby Wilmington Organic Recycling Center, where they are turned into valuable, nutrient-rich soil.

Additionally, the family’s stores feature energy-efficient store lighting in the form of LED lamps and T8 bulbs, along with frozen and dairy display cases with energy-efficient doors. Computerized distributed refrigeration systems allow the Kennys to monitor store temperatures and those of refrigerated cases from a remote location. Employing this technology to take advantage of off-peak schedules, these store-wide systems provide cost savings for the locations, as well as conserving energy and limiting emissions.

ShopRite is the registered trademark of Wakefern Food Corp., a Keasbey, N.J.-based retailer-owned cooperative whose members operate nearly 250 ShopRite supermarkets in New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Delaware and Maryland. All ShopRite stores take part in a bag reuse program, provide plastic bag recycling to customers, and recycle tons of corrugated cardboard, plastics, newspaper, office paper, metal, white stock pill bottles, floral containers, wire bound wooden crates and fluorescent light bulbs annually.