How Tops Friendly Markets tackles food waste, recycling and conserving energy
Ensuring your supermarket is doing what it can to be more environmentally and socially sustainable means attacking this ongoing goal from every angle.
At Tops Friendly Markets’ 149 grocery stores in New York, Pennsylvania and Vermont, it’s about reducing environmental waste and energy consumption while providing customers with sustainably sourced products.
“We also understand that our measures extend beyond responsible business practices that preserve and protect our environment,” company leaders said in a statement. “Sustainability includes supporting programs that seek to eradicate hunger and disease; promoting the education of our youth; comforting those in need; and helping our communities flourish.”
It’s more than a duty. It has to be part of the company culture.
These are the ways the grocery retailer is reducing food waste, recycling and conserving energy.
Fighting food waste
Tops’ Fresh Recovery Program focuses on rescuing and repurposing fresh produce and perishable items that would otherwise go to waste, including bakery, deli, meat, seafood, frozen and dairy items.
Although this program has modern strategies, the company has had a program of some sort like this for decades, partnering with local food banks, food pantries and community organizations to ensure that surplus food is redirected to those in need.
The company also has an organics program to collect culled food, cuttings and waste that can be made into biofuel and animal feeds.
Related: Tops shoppers help divert 500,000 pounds of food waste
In 2022, Tops says it donated 231 tons to food charities and 590 tons of food scraps to organic vendors, farms and sanctuaries. By redistributing these items, the program not only combats hunger, but also reduces the environmental footprint associated with food waste.
So far, Tops has implemented this Fresh Recovery Program in 82 of 130 New York stores.
One specific goal for food waste is to be New York State Department of Environmental Conservation-compliant for the state’s new food scrap law. The law requires businesses and institutions that generate an annual average of 2 tons of wasted food per week or more to donate excess edible food and recycle all remaining food scraps if the business is within 25 miles of an organics recycler, like a composting facility or anaerobic digester. Technical assistance, resources and other guidance is available at the state’s environmental department.
In the next three to five years, the goal is for 100% of Tops stores to be partnered with food donation charities and for 75% of its stores to be partnered with organic recyclers and/or farms and sanctuaries.
Tops has 71 stores using Flashfood, three of which are in Pennsylvania. Flashfood is an app-based marketplace that strives to eliminate retail food waste by connecting consumers with discounted food nearing its best-by date.
Related: Tops expands Flashfood program
“We are the only partner in the area to offer SNAP in collaboration with Flashfood,” Tops leaders said in the statement about the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.
To date, Tops has helped divert more than 50 million pounds of food, saved shoppers more than $120 million and more affordably fed hundreds of thousands of families, the company said.
Shoppers can buy items from Tops through the Flashfood app and pick them up in-store at reduced prices while collectively reducing food waste. This allows customers to save as much as 60% off the Flashfood items, including produce, meat, deli, bakery, and dairy.
Recycling and conserving energy
In 2022, Tops recycled more than 117.4 tons of fryer oil, 424.2 tons of plastic and 12,030.7 tons of cardboard, newspapers and office paper.
Tops has 74 stores that take part in a community solar program where the stores agree to buy power generated from various solar farms throughout New York state.
Solar panels are great for reducing electricity use and saving money for businesses, municipalities as well as residential homes.
Tops is using solar panels on roofs at two stores in the Hudson Valley of New York. But expanding the solar panel program to other locations is meeting some challenges due to the age of store roofs, lease agreements with limited liability-owned properties and other obstacles.
Tops utilizes building management systems to reduce lighting energy use by 50% or more during overnight night hours.
Related: Five ways Tops prioritizes Earth-friendliness
Today 60 stores throughout the chain, as well as its corporate offices and mailroom, have been fully converted from traditional fluorescent lighting to LED lighting.
The grocery retailer is eliminating refrigerants with high Global Warming Potential. In 2022, Tops retrofitted these systems, recovering 22,000 pounds of refrigerant.
Car-charging stations for electric vehicles are yet another way supermarkets can add more to the sustainability plan. Tops has charging stations at two stores and is working on constructing three more.
Tops knows how much pollution refrigerated tractor-trailer trucks can pump into the atmosphere but how necessary these large vehicles are for transporting food from near and far. Tops has invested in energy-efficient trucks by converting 48 new CNG trucks with sustainability benefits in 2022.
Heavy-duty compressed natural gas, or CNG, vehicles work much like gasoline-powered vehicles with internal combustion engines, according to the Department of Energy. By fueling 5 million diesel gallons equivalents of renewable natural gas, Tops will eliminate 55,871 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent per year, the company said.
“To put that into perspective, that is equivalent to eliminating 138,636,719 miles driven by a passenger vehicle!” Tops leaders said.
