SpartanNash Names Winners in Reusable Bag Design Contest

As part of its Earth Week activities, SpartanNash announced the trio of winning designs in its Reusable Bag Design contest. Laurel Allen of Omaha, Neb.; Janelle Lomsdal of Moorhead, Minn.; and Alivia Murphy of Harbor Springs, Mich. will each receive a $500 cash prize, and their designs will be featured on limited-edition reusable grocery shopping bags sold in SpartanNash corporate-owned stores this fall.

“At SpartanNash, we love Earth Week, because it allows us to engage and educate our associates, store guests and communities while celebrating and promoting environmental stewardship,” said Meredith Gremel, vice president of corporate affairs and communications. “As a company, we are committed to being socially responsible and environmentally sustainable, and this bag design contest brings both of those commitments together while celebrating what it means to be from the state you love. We hope that our customers will enjoy using the reusable bags that showcase local talent, have a fun design and reflect the places where they live, work or vacation.”

For the Reusable Bag Design contest, SpartanNash asked its store guests, associates and communities from across the U.S. to submit designs representing local state pride in Nebraska, North Dakota and Michigan. In total, SpartanNash received 81 submissions, which were narrowed down to the top three for each state.

Voting was then opened to the public, who decided the winning designs in an online survey. More than 2,600 votes were cast, with Allen, Lomsdal and Murphy earning the majority of votes for their respective state contests.

The reusable bags contain up to 20 percent recycled material and will be available in September. The bags will be sold for $1.49 in SpartanNash stores, including

·        Family Fare Supermarkets, Family Fresh Market, No Frills, SunMart and Supermercado Nuestra Familia stores in Nebraska

·        Dan’s Supermarkets and Family Fare Supermarkets in North Dakota

·        D&W Fresh Market, Family Fare Supermarkets, Forest Hills Foods, ValuLand and VG’s stores in Michigan.

In addition to the reusable bag design contest, SpartanNash is teaming up with Goodwill Industries for the seventh consecutive year to offer Earth Week donation drives in partnership with 80 of its corporate-owned grocery stores in five states.

On Saturday, April 22 and Sunday, April 23, anyone that drops off a donation to a participating Goodwill organization – located in the same community as a participating SpartanNash corporate-owned store – will receive a coupon for $10 off a $25 or more purchase at SpartanNash-owned stores.

Participating Goodwill locations – along with the SpartanNash retail stores they have partnered with – are listed at spartannash.com/goodwill-partnership.

In total, SpartanNash is partnering with 20 Goodwill organizations across 15 states, including Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Texas, Virginia and Wisconsin. The company’s four service centers and 17 distribution centers are also hosting onsite donation drives for associates as part of SpartanNash’s Earth Week programs.

Since 2011, SpartanNash associates and store guests have diverted more than 121,500 pounds of materials from landfills, and Goodwill has converted these donations into approximately 26,000 hours of workforce redevelopment training for people in their local communities.