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The process is less dictatorial and more collaborative, according to White. “Though we’re very supportive and drive it, you get more from the supplier’s side on coming up with ideas than us coming up with the whole thing,” he continues. “Everyone wants to use sustainability as a point of differentiation or a marketing tool. If it’s the right thing for the environment, we have to figure out a way to make it bigger and bolder than it is with just one vendor or one label,” says White.
“I think sustainability is on the way to becoming the price of admission, and as a retailer, we have to be cognizant of that,” Burnham agrees. “If there are increased costs, the end game is a more sustainable package, and consumers are leaning toward that and holding us accountable.”
In floral, vice president Traci Adams is brainstorming with her suppliers to implement innovative sustainability ideas, all part of a flo- ral program called Zero Waste. “We’re just tapping into it, but everything in that depart- ment is set to be recyclable or compostable. Even the display buckets have some sort of recyclable attribute that we can use, and they can go to a chipper and get worked back in and made into new buckets,” says White.
In terms of item-specific packaging in the produce department, the industry grapples
“Everyone wants to use sustainability as
a point of differentiation or a marketing tool. If it’s the right thing for the environment, we have to figure out a way to make it bigger and bolder than it is with just one vendor or one label.”
with the dichotomy of increased packaging to address food safety and quality issues, versus reduced packaging to eliminate waste and appease die-hard sustainability shoppers. “It’s the pendulum swing. It goes all the way over here and then we’ll find a way to get it back to where it needs to be,” says Burnham. Safe- way puts weight on consumer input.
Committed To Locally Grown
The chatter in regard to sustainability, packaging and locally grown goods has gotten a lot louder and a lot more frequent, accord- ing to Burnham. “We definitely have gotten a lot of kudos from the consumers on our local efforts. Local isn’t anything new to Safeway, we’re just doing a better job communicating it in the in-store environment with point-of-sale
— GEOFF WHITE
materials and through associates,” he says. The concept of locally grown has become nebulous and distorted. “Local can be a real rhetorical kind of thing and no one has really defined what local is,” acknowledges White. “We let our consumers define it for us.” At the same time, “I think there are some ‘have to haves.’ You can’t call it local if it’s going to drive 400 miles, so there’s that hurdle — how far it will travel. But for us, it’s the items that are important to the consumers in the areas that they live. It may not be defined as local, but as locale. It means carrying Michigan blueberries in our Dominick’s stores at the right time. Those shoppers don’t want New Jersey blueberries or Oregon blueberries if they can have Michigan blueberries. That’s important to them. But for our stores in Brent-
MAY 2010 • PRODUCE BUSINESS 27