Sprouts Farmers Market is getting rid of single-use plastic bags

Sprouts Farmers Market plans to eliminate single-use plastic bags at checkout in all stores by the end of the year, the grocer announced Tuesday.

Phoenix-based Sprouts has already stopped using plastic bags at 132 grocery stores in California, after it was mandated in the state.

In April, it will start getting rid of bags in phases in its stores in Nevada, Utah, Maryland, Pennsylvania and Virginia, with plans to complete the process at all of its nearly 390 locations in 23 states in the next few months, Brandon Lombardi, Sprouts’ head of environmental, social and governance, told WGB.

In their place, Sprouts will sell reusable bags for 10 cents each that can hold 22 pounds of groceries and be used about 125 times.

Sprouts Farmers Market is phasing out single-use plastic shopping bags. / Photo courtesy: Sprouts Farmers Market

“Single-use plastics are a well-known problem, and this is just one of the ways Sprouts can contribute,” Lombardi said. “It’s not a perfect solution, but it’s a step in the right direction. Stores like us that have national scale and scope need to jump into the solutions side of the pool.”

Sprouts’ single-use bag ban will remove 200 million of them from circulation each year, he said.

Customers can also bring their single-use plastic bags to Sprouts stores to be recycled.

The goal, Lombardi said, is to encourage shoppers to bring their own reusable bags to the stores. In California, 40% of customers have started using their own totes.

“I would be happy if we never sold one of these reusable plastic bags,” Lombardi said. “Educating them and reminding them that the most-sustainable bag is one they already have is the point of doing this.”

Sprouts also got rid of paper bags at the end of last year, noting that they come with a high environmental cost to produce and often aren’t recycled.

“Paper’s not the answer either,” he said.

The change will be communicated to Sprouts’ shoppers through multiple channels, including in-store and e-mail. “Front-end staff will be educated on why we’re doing this and the impact it’s having,” he said.

Retailers around the country have been steadily decreasing their reliance on single-use plastic bags in recent years, whether mandated by local regulations or fueled by their own sustainability goals.

Starting April 18, Walmart’s 65 stores in Washington state will do away with both plastic and paper bags at checkout, joining Walmart stores in Vermont, Maine, New Jersey, New York, Colorado and Connecticut that have already done so.

Rochester, New York-based Wegmans announced last year that it would eliminate single-use plastic bags at its more than 100 stores.

Aldi also said last year that it intends to ditch plastic shopping bags from all of its stores by the end of this year.

At Sprouts, which caters to a demographic focused on natural and organic foods, environmental sustainability is central to the grocer’s mission, Lombardi said.

“Doing good for the plant has been part of our DNA; it’s part of our strategy,” he said. “Twenty-five percent of our business is fresh produce … Forty percent of that produce is organic. A significant portion of our produce is grown without fertilizers, pesticides, nitrates.”

The grocer recently introduced a Rescued Organics program in its California stores designed to sell slightly imperfect organic produce at a discount, with the goal of reducing food waste. It has also recently shifted to digital advertising, doing away with the distribution of 21 million paper flyers, he said.

Sprouts’ new real estate strategy, centered on stores that are about 30% smaller than its traditional footprint, also hinges on environmental sustainability, he noted. The smaller size makes them more energy efficient, plus they are all being located no more than 250 miles from a distribution center.