Sustainability
BJ’s Focuses on Ethical Sourcing for Private Brands
BJ’s Wholesale Club is a big proponent of ethical and sustainable sourcing in Private Brands — and is making progress in this effort. The retailer’s activities were relayed by Scott Williams, Vice President, Own Brands and Quality, in a presentation at the My Private Brand Sustainability Summit. “When it’s our label, we need to look all the way back in the supply chain,” he said. “Our members trust us, so everything we sell should meet our standards, because we did the work to curate it for them.” Efforts Focus on Private Brand Williams and his team are closely involved with
Private Brand Leads in New Asda Sustainability Store
UK retailer Asda has opened its new sustainability trial store and unveiled a new plastics reduction strategy with a promise that customers will not pay more for greener options. The store is designed to help shoppers reduce, reuse, and recycle with ease and Asda estimates the numerous initiatives being trialed in Middleton will save one million pieces of plastic per year. Asda will use the Middleton store to test and learn which elements of its new offer appeal most to customers and can be developed at scale to be potentially rolled out to more locations in 2021. And to encourage
10 Key Takeaways from the My Private Brand Sustainability Summit
Sustainability has a crucial role to play in Private Brands, and it’s important for retail brand owners to establish strategies to make progress. That was a central point from the inaugural My Private Brand Virtual Sustainability Summit held late last week. Live speaker presentations focused on how sustainability drives loyalty, differentiation and profitability — and how it’s important to maintain momentum in the midst of the pandemic. Registered attendees included about 200 retailers, who came to hear a lineup of speakers from companies including Ahold Delhaize, BJ’s Wholesale Club, Family Dollar, Sobeys and others. The Summit also featured roundtable discussions,
Ahold Delhaize Commits to Increase Healthier Food Sales & Transparency
Ahold Delhaize USA and the Partnership for a Healthier America (PHA) announced a major commitment to increase healthier food sales and publicly disclose the percentage of food sales from healthier options. The announcement marks the largest pledge to increase healthier food sales and transparency from a grocery retailer in the United States. “With this commitment, Ahold Delhaize USA has raised the bar for grocery retailers. This is a win for consumers, through increased sales of healthier foods, and a win for public health through greater transparency of healthier sales data,” said Nancy E. Roman, President & CEO, Partnership for a Healthier America.
Waitrose Unwraps its Gift Wrap
Waitrose will be the first supermarket in the UK to sell rolls of Christmas gift wrap unpackaged this year, eliminating the use of single-use plastic that can’t be recycled. Waitrose will sell two designs of private brand gift wrap without any outer plastic packaging, giving customers a plastic-free option for Christmas gifts. Instead of using plastic shrink wrap to protect the paper, each roll of wrapping paper will use a little extra paper to prevent the wrap from being damaged and labels to stop it unravelling. The market-leading gift wrap, which is produced in the UK, is made from sustainable
Private Brands Celebrate #JustOneCup with Fair Trade USA
[et_pb_section fb_built="1" _builder_version="3.22"][et_pb_row _builder_version="3.25" background_size="initial" background_position="top_left" background_repeat="repeat"][et_pb_column type="4_4" _builder_version="3.25" custom_padding="|||" custom_padding__hover="|||"][et_pb_text _builder_version="3.27.4" background_size="initial" background_position="top_left" background_repeat="repeat"]This week Fair Trade USA celebrated its #JustOneCup campaign to aid coffee farmers amid an unprecedented coffee crisis as the pandemic continues. The campaign dominated by retailers and their private brands highlights commitments by 8 of its business partners that bring additional Fair Trade Certified coffee to market and invites people to choose fair on International Coffee Day, Sept. 29. With coffee prices at 13-year lows, well below the cost of production in most countries, and the pandemic exacerbating challenges due to labor shortages and decreased demand, fair
IKEA to Remove Non-rechargeable Alkaline Batteries by 2021
Following IKEA’s commitment to inspire and enable people to live a healthier and more sustainable life at home, all non-rechargeable alkaline private brand batteries will be removed from the global home furnishing range by October 2021. With this decision, IKEA wishes to inspire consumers who need to frequently use batteries to make a switch to rechargeable batteries. Regular use over time enables consumers to both save money and reduce waste at home. Several current comparative Life Cycle Assessment studies show that the environmental impact of alkaline batteries is higher compared to rechargeable nickel-metal hydride batteries (NiMH) when used in common
Ikea to Launch New Plant Based Meatballs
Tomorrow September 28, home retailer IKEA will launch a new plant-based private brand Swedish meatball to its in-store menu. The “plant ball,” the new option—which builds on an existing plant-based meatball that IKEA launched in 2015—is made from yellow pea protein, oats, potatoes, onion, and apple. “At IKEA, we sell more than one billion meatballs every year. Imagine if we could get some of our many meatball lovers to choose the plant-ball instead,” Sharla Halvorson, Health & Sustainability Manager for IKEA’s global food business, said. “If we were to convert about 20 percent of our meatball sales to plant balls, that
British Environmentalist Ella Daish to Speak at the My Private Brand Virtual Sustainability Summit
[et_pb_section fb_built="1" _builder_version="4.5.6" _module_preset="default"][et_pb_row _builder_version="4.5.6" _module_preset="default"][et_pb_column type="4_4" _builder_version="4.5.6" _module_preset="default"][et_pb_text _builder_version="4.6.1" _module_preset="default" custom_padding="0px|||||"]British activist and environmentalist Ella Daish will sit down with My Private Brand’s Christopher Durham to discuss her award-winning campaign to eliminate all plastic feminine hygiene products at The My Private Brand Virtual Sustainability Summit October 15, 2020. The campaign calls on supermarkets and manufacturers to remove plastic from their period products. Ella is influencing the industry to make real changes and governments and councils to spend their period poverty funding on eco-friendly products. Her award-winning campaign has over 215,000 signatures and is going from strength to strength with supermarkets
Amazon launches “Climate Pledge Friendly” program
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I8Y9yS_C32A&feature=emb_logo Amazon is launching Climate Pledge Friendly, a new program to help make it easy for customers to discover and shop for more sustainable products. Customers will now see the Climate Pledge Friendly label when searching for more than 25,000 products to signify that the products have one or more of 19 different sustainability certifications that help preserve the natural world, such as reducing the carbon footprint of shipments to customers. Climate Pledge Friendly selection can be found across grocery, household, fashion, beauty, and personal electronics products, as well as items from a range of other categories—from brands including, Seventh
