Safeway Expands Usage of Reusable Shipping Containers to Produce

Move high­lights effec­tive sus­tain­abil­ity ini­tia­tives through­out company’s Sup­ply Chain

PLEASANTON, Calif., June 13, 2012 /PRNewswire/ – Safe­way Inc. today fur­thered its com­mit­ment to sus­tain­abil­ity and the envi­ron­ment by announc­ing that it has tran­si­tioned to using reusable prod­uct con­tain­ers (RPCs), rather than cor­ru­gated boxes, to ship many types of pro­duce from the farm fields, through the dis­tri­b­u­tion chan­nel and to final store des­ti­na­tion. This tran­si­tion elim­i­nated the use of over 17 mil­lion pounds of cor­ru­gated boxes.

Safe­way, which has intro­duced a broad range of suc­cess­ful sus­tain­abil­ity prac­tices across its oper­a­tions, has used RPCs for decades on many of its con­sumer brand cat­e­gories, includ­ing bread, milk and soda. The com­pany began test­ing RPCs in its dis­tri­b­u­tion sys­tem for fresh wet-pack pro­duce — fruits and veg­eta­bles kept on ice until they reach the store — in early 2010.

Mak­ing the tran­si­tion for pro­duce was a more com­pli­cated process than for other prod­ucts because, to make it effec­tive and decrease card­board usage, Safeway’s dis­trib­u­tors and grower part­ners also had to com­mit to the switch. The tran­si­tion con­tin­ued through­out 2011.

Today, many types of pro­duce travel from the field, to the dis­trib­u­tor, to Safeway’s prod­uct dis­tri­b­u­tion cen­ters and to the final store loca­tion in RPCs. The company’s major sup­plier of RPCs, IFCO Sys­tems, says Safeway’s imple­men­ta­tion of RPC usage to decrease waste was the fastest and most aggres­sive pro­gram roll-out to date. Safe­way Vice Pres­i­dent of Trans­porta­tion Tom Nartker said employ­ing envi­ron­men­tally friendly meth­ods of prod­uct dis­tri­b­u­tion is part of Safeway’s over­all com­mit­ment to sus­tain­able busi­ness practices.

“This expan­sion into pro­duce is a nat­ural exten­sion of best prac­tices in logis­tics,” said Mr. Nartker. “Safe­way will con­tinue to look for oppor­tu­ni­ties to expand the usage of RPCs into addi­tional cat­e­gories to have an even greater pos­i­tive envi­ron­men­tal impact.”

The use of reusable, sus­tain­able con­tain­ers not only keeps non-recyclable ship­ping con­tain­ers out of the sup­ply chain, but it also has an even greater pos­i­tive envi­ron­men­tal impact. RPCs can be stacked higher and more densely than tra­di­tional boxes, allow­ing for more effi­cient ship­ping and requir­ing fewer trips to trans­port the same amount of prod­uct. This, in turn, decreases truck­ing emis­sions and traf­fic vol­ume. To date, the pos­i­tive envi­ron­men­tal impacts are as follows:

• Elim­i­nated the use of over 17 mil­lion pounds of cor­ru­gated boxes
• Avoided the har­vest­ing of approx­i­mately 114,000 trees
• Reduced emis­sions of 37,518 met­ric tons of green­house gas emis­sions (CO2E) from the envi­ron­ment, equiv­a­lent to remov­ing 6,872 pas­sen­ger cars off the road

Safe­way is an indus­try leader in envi­ron­men­tal sus­tain­abil­ity, eth­i­cal busi­ness prac­tices and effec­tive com­mu­nity out­reach. The com­pany upholds an oper­at­ing phi­los­o­phy that is rooted in cor­po­rate social respon­si­bil­ity focused on four key fun­da­men­tals: Peo­ple, Prod­ucts, Com­mu­nity, and the Planet. These fun­da­men­tals are “The Heart of Safe­way,” bring­ing together our pas­sion for food and serv­ing our cus­tomers with the rapidly devel­op­ing needs of our com­mu­ni­ties and our planet.

About Safe­way
Safe­way Inc. is a For­tune 100 com­pany and one of the largest food and drug retail­ers in North Amer­ica based on sales. The com­pany oper­ates 1,678 stores in the United States and west­ern Canada and had annual sales of $43.6 bil­lion in 2011.

Con­tact: Teena Massingill, 925−467−3810, Teena.Massingill@Safeway.com
 

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