Weis Markets 1st Grocer to Earn Sustainable Food Retail Certification

Weis Markets has received Ratio Institute’s Sustainable Food Retail Certification, making the Mid-Atlantic grocer the first food retailer to achieve the certification. The company successfully completed the requirements for Steward Tier certification, demonstrating not just its commitment to be a sustainable food retailer, but also its efforts to continuously improve its performance in this area.

The Sustainable Food Retail Certification program helps food retailers achieve operational excellence and meet sustainability goals by benchmarking performance, lowering costs and boosting 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. Additionally, food retailers gain insight 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,” noted 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 Santa Cruz, Calif.-based 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.”

Sunbury, Pa.-based Weis Markets operates 197 stores in Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Virginia and West Virginia. The company is No. 60 on The PG 100, Progressive Grocer’s 2021 list of the top food and consumables retailers in North America.