ShopRite held a ribbon-cutting ceremony April 24 to celebrate a recently opened an EVgo electric vehicle fast-charging station at 1600 West Newport Pike in Wilmington, Delaware.
Installed by EVgo Inc., the station serves four stalls with two 100kW fast chargers and one high-power 350kW fast charger capable of charging two vehicles. The station is available to the general public.
The launch is part of a push by Wakefern Food Corp., the retailer-owned supermarket cooperative based in Keasbey, New Jersey, to bring more public charging stations to communities where ShopRite has stores.
The Kenny family, which owns and operates the ShopRite of First State Plaza, is a Wakefern member who has operated ShopRite stores in Delaware for about 30 years.
“We are excited to bring this new charging station to our ShopRite customers and electric vehicle drivers, and they are using it on a regular basis,” Melissa Kenny said.
“Our Wilmington store is a great location for this much needed infrastructure because it sits along Newport Pike in a busy shopping center with several other tenants, including the post office and cinema.”
Kenny was joined at the ribbon cutting by store employees, guests and officials, including U.S. Sen. Tom Carper, New Castle County Executive Matt Meyer and Iris Turner, deputy state director, office of U.S. Rep. Lisa Blunt Rochester.
“The investments we make in charging infrastructure today are going to be critical in the years ahead as more and more Americans make the shift to electric vehicles,” Carper said. “I am grateful to everyone at ShopRite for taking this important step in helping our environment.”
Meyer said the EVgo charging station at ShopRite is an important complement to the county’s “100 EV Plugs Plan.”
“We are, through our parks and libraries, setting up 100 EV charging plugs across the community,” Meyer said.
“But that’s not nearly enough. We need companies to step up – and that’s why we appreciate this partnership today with the Kenny family, Wakefern Food Corp. and EVgo.”
Wakefern’s real estate department is working with cooperative members and stores to identify more locations for possible charging stations.
“Wakefern’s electric vehicle charging initiative is important to the cooperative and our supermarket banners,” said Andrew Pittel, manager of real estate at Wakefern, who is overseeing the EV charging initiative for the cooperative.
“We are collaborating with EVgo charging providers to bring this critical infrastructure to our stores and communities because we know building a bigger and better EV public charging network encourages more drivers to go electric.”
The Kenny family and Kenny Family ShopRites have worked to reduce the environmental footprint of their supermarkets. The stores employ energy-efficient lighting and refrigerated cases and have programs in place to maximize recycling and reduce waste and water use at retail.
More than a decade ago, the company was one of the first retailers in the state to join the federal Food Recovery Challenge, with a focus on fresh food donations to local food banks and composting at retail to reduce waste headed to landfills. It also works with local farms and Keep Delaware Beautiful, a chapter of Keep America Beautiful.
About ShopRite
ShopRite is the registered trademark of Wakefern Food Corp., the largest supermarket cooperative in the U.S. It operates hundreds of supermarkets throughout New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Delaware and Maryland.
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