Meijer announced today it will host a Sustainability Summit this fall, expanding upon last year’s inaugural event to give even more vendors nationwide the opportunity to showcase their environmentally-focused products for Meijer merchants to consider offering on shelves.

This virtual event will be held Oct. 11-13 and seeks to engage suppliers with sustainable products in the food, health and beauty, everyday essentials, pets, apparel, and general merchandise categories.

“At Meijer, we understand that to be a good company, we must be a good neighbor, which is why we’re interested in meeting new vendors to further integrate sustainability attributes into our product offerings and daily operations,” said Don Sanderson, Chief Merchandising and Marketing Officer at Meijer. “We want to provide our customers with the great products they’re looking for while being mindful of the impact those products make within our communities and the world around us.”

The Meijer Sustainability Summit aims to build relationships with environmentally conscious suppliers to expand its sustainable product offerings in categories storewide. Meijer merchants target 38 different certifications on vendor products or their manufacturing and procurement processes to meet its sustainability standards. For example, seafood merchants look at vendors following the Best Aquaculture Practices. Toy merchants are interested in vendors with Ecologo certifications to ensure products are made without harmful chemicals. Meanwhile, the retailer’s grocery and consumable merchants are looking for vendors participating in the Rainforest Alliance Certification Program that validates forest standards, climate, human rights, and livelihoods. Meijer is also seeking products across all categories with sustainable packaging attributes.

Certified vendors with retail-ready products can apply by Aug. 25 for consideration here.

Meijer is partnering with Efficient Collaborative Retail Marketing (ECRM) and its subsidiary product discovery tool, RangeMe, to host this event through its ECRM Connect virtual platform.

Once applications for the event are submitted, Meijer teams will review and select the vendors they would like to meet at the summit. Suppliers not chosen for the conference will still be accessible through the RangeMe registration tool and may be reviewed by Meijer merchants again as business needs change.

Visit the retailer’s Better Products page to learn more about its efforts to source local products, the Meijer True Goodness brand, and its sustainable packaging goals.

Meijer has a strong base of thousands of sustainable and clean living products. In 2021, Meijer launched its sustainable clothing Retailer-owned Brand items from recycled polyester and 100% organic cotton. More than 80% of the MTA Sport assortment in men’s, women’s, and kids, as well as more than 60% of the men’s Lake & Trail line, is made with at least 30 percent recycled polyester. The retailer’s Wave Zone men’s PFC Free line is also made with recycled polyester. Those lines use post-consumer water bottles ground into chips, melted into a fiber filament, and turned into fabric to make apparel.