several years ago my sister sent an
email out to the whole family because
she was particularly outraged about the
destruction of the rainforests in
Indonesia the article was about the
orangutan habitat and how they were
being displaced and killed to make room
for palm oil production palm oils and
products such as shampoos soaps cleaners
and food so she asked us all in the
family to stop using palm oil products
and then she asked us to get our
neighbors and people on our street to
stop using palm oil products and I
thought whoa that could take a lot of
time there’s a lot of people on our
street why can’t we just get the darn
grocery store to stop selling palm oil
products and we’ll have all the streets
covered well the results of that are
still pending but it got me to think on
a more macro level about impact and
opportunity and I began to wonder is
there a business sector out there that
has a greater opportunity to be more
sustainable than the grocery store think
about all the impact and energy
associated with producing manufacturing
and transporting tens of thousands of
products around the world to the 38,000
grocery stores in America its immense
and the amount of energy they use at the
grocery store is immense decade after
decade after decade grocery stores use
more energy per square foot than any
other business type and the flow of
materials in the back all the cardboard
all the packaging all the plastic all
the food and all the food waste so I
would argue that there is no industry
sector or business sector that has a
greater opportunity to be more
sustainable than the grocery store but I
would also add there is no business
sector out there that has the
opportunity to communicate and
demonstrate the importance of
sustainability than the grocery sector
and I say that because I don’t really
see them doing that it almost seems like
the grocery store is reluctant to lead
us toward
more sustainable future and that’s
unfortunate and odd it’s unfortunate
because no other business sector gets us
in the door with as much frequency as
the grocery stores do we go to the
grocery stores between 1.8 and 2.2 times
per week that’s twice per week and it
seems like that they’re not seizing this
opportunity to lead in helping us have a
more sustainable future and it’s odd
because the market research says that
they have a lot to benefit if they do so
there’s a growing interest in
sustainable products there’s a growing
interest in going to sustainable
businesses 77% of Americans are
interested in the environmental
attributes of the products that they’re
shopping for that’s up from 71 percent
from two years before that in 66 and 63
and 5755 it has been on a steady and
significant incline for two decades yet
the grocery sector is slow to react to
that it’s almost as if they are stuck in
time if our planet is going to be more
sustainable in the future or even
somewhat measurably
more sustainable in the future grocery
stores have to stop looking and
operating like it’s 1960 they still
generate a lot of waste out the back
they’re still challenged with trying to
figure out how to use energy efficiently
and it’s the same source of products on
the shelves decade after decade after
decade why is that
well grocery stores exist on
single-digit profit margins and by
single-digit I don’t mean like seven
eight and nine percent I mean one and
maybe two after selling eighteen million
dollars worth of product in a year a
grocery store might have 300 thousand
dollars left over as profit that is a
1.7 percent profit margin that’s the
average profit margin for the industry
in America that is very slim it doesn’t
give them a lot of leeway to think about
innovation being innovative or being
creative or thinking about a sustainable
future but we need to encourage them to
do that otherwise it is going to keep
looking decade and decade and
like it like it always has been I have
found that helping them understand the
economics of efficiency is a good
stepping stone to getting them to
becoming more sustainable now a grocery
store sells eighteen million dollars
worth of product in a year and their
profits about three hundred thousand but
those operating costs are almost right
under where their revenue line is
anytime that they can save some money
particularly with being more efficient
it’s going to translate over to the
revenue side so for every dollar in the
electrical energy that they can save and
refrigeration is mostly electrical it
doesn’t translate to $1 on the revenue
side that $1 drop in operating costs is
equivalent to a chunk of $18 on the
revenue side but they don’t know that so
what does that look like at a grocery
store well my kids like to go to the
grocery store and tell me how much air
curtain space is blocked every time with
every time we’re there to go shopping I
have a 10 and 11 year old and they’ll
typically come up and say hey Dad
there’s 20 feet of blocked air curtain
space at the grocery store today and
what they meet what what that means is
that those open refrigeration cases that
are displaying products would be more
efficient if they had doors on them but
the open ones they could operate more
efficiently by not blocking the vent at
the bottom so those carrots right there
are blocking that vent on the bottom
which is trying to suck that cold air
back in there’s an air curtain that’s
trying to decrease the amount of air
exchange from the refrigerated unit in
the store and when you have product
jutting out or a sales tag jutting out
over that vent on the bottom right under
those carrots it’s like sticking your
hand in a waterfall all that cold air
just drops out and runs onto the floor
and the customers are all complaining
about how cold they are in the store and
that unit is running very inefficient
and that is a three minute fix but any
grocery store you go to in America is
going to have about 20 feet blocked and
they know it my kids know it’s 20 feet
because the squares on the floor are all
12 by 12 and so they can run around the
store and count up how much blocked
airspace there is and it’s $100 a year
for every square so a 200 so a 24
blocking space is gonna be about a
$2,000 cost to that store now when they
reduce if they can fix that by spending
three minutes maybe twice a day just
pushing that stuff back they will reduce
that operating cost by $2,000 but on the
revenue side that’s $36,000 in sales and
a lot of these grocery stores don’t know
that and remember they only make about
300,000 in profit that’s 12 percent of
their profit and all they need to do is
spend three minutes twice a day pushing
that stuff back it would be cheaper to
give those carrots away for free to a
customer than to keep them on that vent
blocking that air another example is
seafood grocery stores love to display
seafood on ice but making ice with
electricity is very expensive a
refrigerated seafood display will use
$5,000 less energy than an iced seafood
display and a refrigerated seafood
display uses a hundred thousand gallons
less water and you don’t need to heat
the water up with propane to melt it
down at the end of the night so my kids
like to go around and see what the
seafood displays look like at different
grocery stores now that $5,000 if
they’re able to move away from an ice
seafood display that $5,000 is
equivalent to about ninety thousand on
the revenue side and if a grocery store
chain has 200 stores five thousand times
200 that’s a million but we know that’s
not a million cuz you got to multiply it
by 18 is it really worth 18 million
dollars to display seafood or fish heads
on ice I was at a grocery store out west
a couple years ago and I asked an
employee what do you guys do about food
waste and he goes I don’t know let’s go
to the customer service didn’t ask so we
walked 30 feet over and he said this guy
wants to know about food waste and I
said you compost it do you donate it
what do you do and the woman said no no
no no we can that do anything like that
we have strictly legal liabilities that
no it all has to go in the trash which
is unfortunate because they pay by the
pound and food is heavy and I said well
you know you really ought to think about
either composting it or donating it or
doing something and rate as I was saying
that the manager came up and
she said what did you want to know and I
said why was wondering about food waste
and she said oh yeah we have a very
strong composting program and we donate
fifteen thousand pounds a week to the
food shelter and I was like wow three
different employees three different
answers the opportunity to communicate
and demonstrate sustainability exists
internally there as well not just
externally to its customers and finally
what about the palm oil what about the
sustainable products at your store are
you able to find sustainable products at
your store yeah you can find organic and
local now that’s pretty easy but what
about humanely raised meat what about
Fairtrade stuff or what about a green
certified cleaning chemical can you find
that we’re finding more and more grocery
stores are starting to highlight that
but really your typical average American
grocery store is hiding those products
we’d like to see them called out in the
aisles with the other products but
called out as this is more sustainable
particularly when you know 77% could be
interested in that there is no marketing
advantage to having them hidden and not
highlighted so I asked you that because
I know most of you in the audience today
are going to be going to a grocery store
sometime in the next three or four days
and I know you’re gonna go with a list
so I’m gonna give you a list and we have
these out in the lobby area but I’m
gonna give you a list of not of stuff to
buy but of stuff to look for these four
things that I just mentioned because I’d
like to see what is at your grocery
store and I want to give you the
opportunity to sort of look at your
grocery store and maybe even encourage
them to be more sustainable so often we
go to the grocery store and we fill our
carriage up with the products and then
put them on the conveyor belt and then
we slightly swipe our card and we look
up and we say okay see ya and we walk
out we are not seizing the opportunity
to help the grocery stores be more
sustainable we are there a hundred times
a year and we say nothing so I’m gonna
give you the opportunity to say
something because of these four things
one of them you have to ask about the
food waste
I suggest asking either the cashier or a
manager and you can tell them I’m
interested in our grocery stores
becoming more sustainable this is the
most important business sector we have
and it’s time for us to start
manning more from our grocery stores and
maybe this will help pull them out of
the time warp thank you
you
email out to the whole family because
she was particularly outraged about the
destruction of the rainforests in
Indonesia the article was about the
orangutan habitat and how they were
being displaced and killed to make room
for palm oil production palm oils and
products such as shampoos soaps cleaners
and food so she asked us all in the
family to stop using palm oil products
and then she asked us to get our
neighbors and people on our street to
stop using palm oil products and I
thought whoa that could take a lot of
time there’s a lot of people on our
street why can’t we just get the darn
grocery store to stop selling palm oil
products and we’ll have all the streets
covered well the results of that are
still pending but it got me to think on
a more macro level about impact and
opportunity and I began to wonder is
there a business sector out there that
has a greater opportunity to be more
sustainable than the grocery store think
about all the impact and energy
associated with producing manufacturing
and transporting tens of thousands of
products around the world to the 38,000
grocery stores in America its immense
and the amount of energy they use at the
grocery store is immense decade after
decade after decade grocery stores use
more energy per square foot than any
other business type and the flow of
materials in the back all the cardboard
all the packaging all the plastic all
the food and all the food waste so I
would argue that there is no industry
sector or business sector that has a
greater opportunity to be more
sustainable than the grocery store but I
would also add there is no business
sector out there that has the
opportunity to communicate and
demonstrate the importance of
sustainability than the grocery sector
and I say that because I don’t really
see them doing that it almost seems like
the grocery store is reluctant to lead
us toward
more sustainable future and that’s
unfortunate and odd it’s unfortunate
because no other business sector gets us
in the door with as much frequency as
the grocery stores do we go to the
grocery stores between 1.8 and 2.2 times
per week that’s twice per week and it
seems like that they’re not seizing this
opportunity to lead in helping us have a
more sustainable future and it’s odd
because the market research says that
they have a lot to benefit if they do so
there’s a growing interest in
sustainable products there’s a growing
interest in going to sustainable
businesses 77% of Americans are
interested in the environmental
attributes of the products that they’re
shopping for that’s up from 71 percent
from two years before that in 66 and 63
and 5755 it has been on a steady and
significant incline for two decades yet
the grocery sector is slow to react to
that it’s almost as if they are stuck in
time if our planet is going to be more
sustainable in the future or even
somewhat measurably
more sustainable in the future grocery
stores have to stop looking and
operating like it’s 1960 they still
generate a lot of waste out the back
they’re still challenged with trying to
figure out how to use energy efficiently
and it’s the same source of products on
the shelves decade after decade after
decade why is that
well grocery stores exist on
single-digit profit margins and by
single-digit I don’t mean like seven
eight and nine percent I mean one and
maybe two after selling eighteen million
dollars worth of product in a year a
grocery store might have 300 thousand
dollars left over as profit that is a
1.7 percent profit margin that’s the
average profit margin for the industry
in America that is very slim it doesn’t
give them a lot of leeway to think about
innovation being innovative or being
creative or thinking about a sustainable
future but we need to encourage them to
do that otherwise it is going to keep
looking decade and decade and
like it like it always has been I have
found that helping them understand the
economics of efficiency is a good
stepping stone to getting them to
becoming more sustainable now a grocery
store sells eighteen million dollars
worth of product in a year and their
profits about three hundred thousand but
those operating costs are almost right
under where their revenue line is
anytime that they can save some money
particularly with being more efficient
it’s going to translate over to the
revenue side so for every dollar in the
electrical energy that they can save and
refrigeration is mostly electrical it
doesn’t translate to $1 on the revenue
side that $1 drop in operating costs is
equivalent to a chunk of $18 on the
revenue side but they don’t know that so
what does that look like at a grocery
store well my kids like to go to the
grocery store and tell me how much air
curtain space is blocked every time with
every time we’re there to go shopping I
have a 10 and 11 year old and they’ll
typically come up and say hey Dad
there’s 20 feet of blocked air curtain
space at the grocery store today and
what they meet what what that means is
that those open refrigeration cases that
are displaying products would be more
efficient if they had doors on them but
the open ones they could operate more
efficiently by not blocking the vent at
the bottom so those carrots right there
are blocking that vent on the bottom
which is trying to suck that cold air
back in there’s an air curtain that’s
trying to decrease the amount of air
exchange from the refrigerated unit in
the store and when you have product
jutting out or a sales tag jutting out
over that vent on the bottom right under
those carrots it’s like sticking your
hand in a waterfall all that cold air
just drops out and runs onto the floor
and the customers are all complaining
about how cold they are in the store and
that unit is running very inefficient
and that is a three minute fix but any
grocery store you go to in America is
going to have about 20 feet blocked and
they know it my kids know it’s 20 feet
because the squares on the floor are all
12 by 12 and so they can run around the
store and count up how much blocked
airspace there is and it’s $100 a year
for every square so a 200 so a 24
blocking space is gonna be about a
$2,000 cost to that store now when they
reduce if they can fix that by spending
three minutes maybe twice a day just
pushing that stuff back they will reduce
that operating cost by $2,000 but on the
revenue side that’s $36,000 in sales and
a lot of these grocery stores don’t know
that and remember they only make about
300,000 in profit that’s 12 percent of
their profit and all they need to do is
spend three minutes twice a day pushing
that stuff back it would be cheaper to
give those carrots away for free to a
customer than to keep them on that vent
blocking that air another example is
seafood grocery stores love to display
seafood on ice but making ice with
electricity is very expensive a
refrigerated seafood display will use
$5,000 less energy than an iced seafood
display and a refrigerated seafood
display uses a hundred thousand gallons
less water and you don’t need to heat
the water up with propane to melt it
down at the end of the night so my kids
like to go around and see what the
seafood displays look like at different
grocery stores now that $5,000 if
they’re able to move away from an ice
seafood display that $5,000 is
equivalent to about ninety thousand on
the revenue side and if a grocery store
chain has 200 stores five thousand times
200 that’s a million but we know that’s
not a million cuz you got to multiply it
by 18 is it really worth 18 million
dollars to display seafood or fish heads
on ice I was at a grocery store out west
a couple years ago and I asked an
employee what do you guys do about food
waste and he goes I don’t know let’s go
to the customer service didn’t ask so we
walked 30 feet over and he said this guy
wants to know about food waste and I
said you compost it do you donate it
what do you do and the woman said no no
no no we can that do anything like that
we have strictly legal liabilities that
no it all has to go in the trash which
is unfortunate because they pay by the
pound and food is heavy and I said well
you know you really ought to think about
either composting it or donating it or
doing something and rate as I was saying
that the manager came up and
she said what did you want to know and I
said why was wondering about food waste
and she said oh yeah we have a very
strong composting program and we donate
fifteen thousand pounds a week to the
food shelter and I was like wow three
different employees three different
answers the opportunity to communicate
and demonstrate sustainability exists
internally there as well not just
externally to its customers and finally
what about the palm oil what about the
sustainable products at your store are
you able to find sustainable products at
your store yeah you can find organic and
local now that’s pretty easy but what
about humanely raised meat what about
Fairtrade stuff or what about a green
certified cleaning chemical can you find
that we’re finding more and more grocery
stores are starting to highlight that
but really your typical average American
grocery store is hiding those products
we’d like to see them called out in the
aisles with the other products but
called out as this is more sustainable
particularly when you know 77% could be
interested in that there is no marketing
advantage to having them hidden and not
highlighted so I asked you that because
I know most of you in the audience today
are going to be going to a grocery store
sometime in the next three or four days
and I know you’re gonna go with a list
so I’m gonna give you a list and we have
these out in the lobby area but I’m
gonna give you a list of not of stuff to
buy but of stuff to look for these four
things that I just mentioned because I’d
like to see what is at your grocery
store and I want to give you the
opportunity to sort of look at your
grocery store and maybe even encourage
them to be more sustainable so often we
go to the grocery store and we fill our
carriage up with the products and then
put them on the conveyor belt and then
we slightly swipe our card and we look
up and we say okay see ya and we walk
out we are not seizing the opportunity
to help the grocery stores be more
sustainable we are there a hundred times
a year and we say nothing so I’m gonna
give you the opportunity to say
something because of these four things
one of them you have to ask about the
food waste
I suggest asking either the cashier or a
manager and you can tell them I’m
interested in our grocery stores
becoming more sustainable this is the
most important business sector we have
and it’s time for us to start
manning more from our grocery stores and
maybe this will help pull them out of
the time warp thank you
you
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