ShopRite Spotlights Sustainability Measures

This month ShopRite stores are presenting their annual Earth Day Challenge, providing complimentary cleanup kits with such items as gloves and garbage bags to volunteers who remove litter from beaches or beautify local parks.

In 2016, 6,000 volunteers took part in community clean-ups at 130 locations across five states in 2016. Since the program began, more than 40,000 people have participated in the Earth Day Challenge.

The chain’s other sustainability measures include stores designed to help reduce energy and water consumption through the use of energy-efficient glass doors on refrigerated and freezer cases, conservation lighting and low-flow faucets; the implementation of composting and donations to area food banks to lessen food waste; and a recycling program to divert trash from landfills. This spring, ShopRite stores are also offering reusable bags bearing a special Earth Day message.

Further, more than 100 in-store “Green Teams” – groups of employees who volunteer to make ShopRite stores more sustainable – also seek the best ways to aid the environment and forge fruitful partnerships with environmental organizations.

ShopRite teams with 25 environmental organizations, and its supermarkets have been recognized by the Environmental Protection Agency for their sustainability efforts regarding food recovery. Additionally, an increasing number ShopRite stores have received Grocery Stewardship Certification (GSC), the first and only grocery sustainability certification program in the United States.

ShopRite stores have recycled 2 million tons of material over the past 40 years. In 2016 alone, the locations recycled 143,965 tons of waxed and corrugated cardboard, 3,883 tons of plastics, 983 tons of newspaper, 281 tons of office paper and 57 tons of metal, as well as composting more than 21,000 tons of food waste.

The registered trademark of Keasbey, N.J.-based retailer-owned cooperative Wakefern Food Corp., ShopRite has more than 270 supermarkets in New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Delaware and Maryland, serving more than 6 million customers each week.