ShopRite of Brodheadsville, PA Wins EPA 'Gold'

ShopRite's Brodheadsville, Penn. location has been awarded the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) GreenChill Gold Certification in recognition of its sustainable cooling systems, which reduce refrigerant emissions and decrease their impact on the ozone layer and climate change. The store is one of 30 national recipients of gold certification.

“We are honored to accept this prestigious award and are proud of our efforts in creating a sustainable shopping experience,” said Chris Kinsley, Sr., the store's owner and general manager. “We hope that this recognition will bring greater awareness to the need for businesses to operate in an environmentally friendly way, and we will continue to challenge ourselves to find additional opportunities to save energy and conserve our natural resources.”

The EPA’s goal in creating this award is to encourage retailers to act as partners to transition their stores to environmentally friendlier refrigerants, eliminate environmentally and financially costly refrigerant leaks, and to adopt green refrigeration technologies and other environmental practices.

The ShopRite of Brodheadsville was built from the ground up using some of the industry’s “greenest” technologies to help reduce waste, protect the environment and create a more energy-efficient shopping experience. The store includes the latest energy-saving and sustainable technologies in refrigeration and lighting, including glass doors on the dairy and freezer cases, LED and T-8 lighting, environmentally-friendly refrigerant systems and a store-wide energy management system. Energy usage will be reduced significantly for refrigeration of products and store lighting with the implementation of this state-of-the-art equipment.

The store also employs a waste to water machine, called a bio-digester, to convert organic waste that would otherwise be bound for a landfill, into water. This machine has the potential to eliminate 240 tons of organic waste annually.

In addition, the store has also undertaken a significant recycling effort, working with its waste hauler to remove 12 tons per year of paper, cardboard, plastic and aluminum from the store that would otherwise end up in landfills.

To prove that even the smallest changes can have a big impact, the store installed seven waterless urinals, which will save between 20,000-45,000 gallons of water per year. The store’s skylights provide natural daylight, saving on electricity, and the store’s “Green Team” challenges its associates and customers to come up with even more energy saving ideas.

ShopRite is the registered trademark of Wakefern Food Corp., a retailer-owned cooperative, based in Keasbey, N.J., and the largest supermarket cooperative in the United States. With nearly 250 supermarkets located throughout New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Delaware and Maryland, ShopRite serves more than five million customers each week.