Giant Food Celebrates Earth Day All Year

For Giant Food, making sustainable business decisions that benefit the environment is key to how the company goes to business every day, not just Earth Day. Giant is committed to many environmentally-friendly programs including:

Giant’s Meat the Needs Program. Giant freezes meat that would otherwise go to waste, but is still safe to consume, and donates it to regional food bank partners, helping to alleviate hunger across the communities they serve. As a result, over 1,128,768 pounds of meat have been donated and kept out of the waste stream.

Giant’s Exclusive Partnership with BrightFarms. In March, Giant announced its exclusive partnership with BrightFarms. The partnership allows Giant to carry locally-grown produce year-round from BrightFarms Capitol Greenhouse located in Culpeper County, VA. BrightFarms provides Giant an assortment of fresh salad mixes, such as baby arugula, Asian greens, baby spinach, spring mix, spinach blend and baby kale, as well as basil and a variety of tomatoes. The produce supplied will total nearly one million pounds per year.

Offering 100 percent Sustainably Sourced Seafood. All of the seafood sold from Giant’s in-store service counters is now 100 percent sustainably and responsibly sourced. In addition, 100 percent of Giant stores’ Nature’s Promise and Own Brand seafood products are also sustainably sourced, including frozen shrimp and canned tuna. In total, Giant stores offers more than 200 sustainable seafood items.

Waste Reduction. In 2015, Giant diverted 88 percent of its waste from landfills by donating, recycling or composting refuse. Giant turned extra food into over 2.6 million meals, donated over 1.1 million pounds of meat, and saved over 660 thousand trees by recycling cardboard last year.

Better Bags program. Since 2011, Giant has invested in reducing the number of plastic bags used in stores and encouraging customers to use recyclable bags at checkout. Because of these better bagging methods, Giant has saved enough plastic to circle the earth 2.5 times. Additionally, each store offers plastic bag recycling, resulting in an additional million pounds of recycled material.

“Giant’s team is comprised of environmentally-responsible individuals who play a crucial role in the success of these programs,” said Gordon Reid, president, Giant Food. “Initiatives such as Meat the Needs and the Better Bags programs are made all the more successful thanks to our 20,000 associates who continuously demonstrate a caring commitment to both our communities and our planet.”