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against doing this casing because there is an immediate investment. Don’t get me wrong; sustainability isn’t cheap, but there’s a return on investment. Short-term sacrifice for the long-term goal is what we continue to explore.
We even take that methodology when we look at our fleet. We have one the most envi- ronmentally friendly fleets.
Michael Hewitt: We have over 170 hybrid vehicles in our light-duty fleet; that includes cars and sedans.
Maria Brous: We have our Priuses; we have our Camrys, which are company cars that we issue to our associates. It was probably three years ago when we started testing the lit- tle Priuses, and now they’ve become more popular. Before, it used to be if you saw a Prius, you thought of Publix. We were on the cutting edge of doing things like that.
Michael Hewitt: When we look at the ben- efit of doing that, we’re not just looking at the fuel savings. It also helps reduce our carbon footprint and it sends the right message.
Mira Slott: You’re showing that your actions are connecting with your words.
Maria Brous: We really do question status quo. We look at everything and ask ourselves, “How could it be better?”
Michael Hewitt: That’s a challenge for a company that’s almost 80 years old. Compa- nies that have been around as long as Publix might be more set in their ways, but we are constantly working on trying to do better and always asking why do we do it this way?
Ken Whitacre: Are you converting your delivery trucks to bio-diesel or any other effi- cient means of gas?
Michael Hewitt: No, but we’re looking at that. We have a fleet of the heavy-duty trucks. We’re constantly working on increasing the fuel efficiency of those vehicles through vari- ous means, either mechanical or improving the aerodynamics. We’re also working on and have achieved efficiencies in our delivery routes so that we can reduce the number of miles traveled and increase the utilization rate of those trucks, so there’s progress being made there as well.
FUTURE CHALLENGES
Mira Slott: What do you think the biggest challenges are to your future goals with sus- tainability?
Maria Brous: One of the things that I’d list is our size. Being able to find suppliers to meet our ever-growing store count poses a challenge in most cases. Even though we’re very regional, it’s still a large store count to be regional. When you look at those 1002 stores, 783 are Florida-based.
When you ask about our trucks and our
fleet, we have over 684 tractors on the road at any given day, so that becomes difficult in of itself to say, “Okay, we can convert.” We looked at our generators in 2004 after we were hit with back-to-back hurricanes. Being Flori- da-based, we always knew we had a pretty tight business, but when we looked at 2004 losses of over $60 million because we couldn’t recuperate before we were hit with the next hurricane, we decided that we were going to take matters into our own hands and do gen- erators. It started off as a project that would invest $100 million in hurricane-prone stores and then turned into a plan to cover the entire state where practical.
Michael Hewitt: We have over 700 stores now with these 500-kilowatt generators. Many of them are bio-fuel, which means they run off of the mixture of diesel and natural gas, making them more efficient and allowing for a longer runtime. That again gets to the people component of sustainability and providing help after the hurricane hits.
Maria Brous: People look at Publix.
Michael Hewitt: ...to help them buy their medicine, to get clean water to drink and food to eat, and ice, which is obviously very impor- tant after a hurricane.
Maria Brous: Everything goes off the shelf at one point or another. It amazes me the amount of produce, meat and dairy that we sell during that pre-hurricane rush. “What are people doing with this?” you wonder, because inevitably, you’re going to lose power no mat- ter where you are at some given point.
I still lived in South Florida in 2004 and right after Hurricane Charlie, I remember lis- tening to the radio and one of the morning DJs said, “I knew it was serious when I went to my local Publix and they were closed. They’re only closed three days a year.” This was the fourth day. This to him was the major topic of conversation because we are that kind of con- gregation point.
Mira Slott: You mean the fact that people are depending on you.
Maria Brous: Yes, and while that is a great honor, it also comes with a heavy load and a heavy responsibility that so many people depend on us as part of that community.
We have many more eyes that look at us from all different directions. Not only do cus- tomers expect more from us, but even regula- tory agencies and different organizations also expect us to be taking the lead. There’s the pride and everything else that we have, but there is also a higher set of standards that we hold ourselves to not only because we believe in that personal accountability.
Michael Hewitt: It’s expected, and it’s amazing the effort that goes into preparing for a hurricane and to make sure that after the
38 PRODUCE BUSINESS • MAY 2009
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