Sunbury, Pennsylvania-based Weis Markets is the first food retailer to achieve Ratio Institute’s Sustainable Food Retail Certification.
Weis Markets successfully completed the requirements for Steward Tier certification, demonstrating not only its commitment to be a sustainable food retailer but also its efforts at continuously improving its sustainability performance.
The Sustainable Food Retail Certification program helps food retailers achieve operational excellence and meet sustainability goals by benchmarking performance, reducing costs and increasing margins. It does this by assessing a retailer’s practices across its operations, verifying them and awarding certification based on points earned and compliance with requirements.
As part of the certification, food retailers also receive the additional benefit of insights into cost savings from operational sustainability efforts, revenue-generating sustainability opportunities, employee engagement opportunities, and metrics on waste, water, energy and other efficiency measures.
“Since 2008, we’ve steadily expanded and refined our sustainability program, particularly with reducing refrigerant usage and food waste along with conserving energy,” said R. Kevin Small, Weis Markets VP of development. “This has helped make us a more efficient company and allowed us to reduce our impact on the communities we serve. It is important to note this achievement was made possible by the work of thousands of Weis associates.”
“Weis Markets is an excellent example of an industry leader. Weis continually demonstrates the value of sustainable operations for food retail,” said Peter Cooke, director of programs and partnerships for Ratio Institute. “For many years, Weis has been implementing sustainable operations, reducing impact and saving money. As a community leader, Weis communicates the importance of sustainability to their customers and employees.”
Founded in 1912, Weis Markets Inc. is a Mid Atlantic food retailer operating 197 stores in Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey, New York West Virginia and Virginia. For more information, visit: WeisMarkets.com.
