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Sustainability at Kroger

As America’s grocer, Kroger is committed to advancing positive change in our company and our communities to protect people and our planet. Through Kroger’s Zero Hunger | Zero Waste social impact plan, we are on a journey to end hunger in the places we call home and eliminate waste across our company by 2025. We have ambitious sustainability goals for 2020, thoughtful plans to drive innovation, strong partnerships and committed associates. Together, we live Our Purpose – to Feed the Human Spirit™ – every day.

Read Our 2020 ESG Report

Sustainable Supply Chain

Many of our customers want to know more about the food they eat – where it comes from and how it’s made – and they want to feel good about their choices. We are focused on reducing the environmental and social impacts of the products we carry in our stores, including the many Our Brands products in our assortment. With an average of 4,000 natural and organic products per store, a growing Fair Trade certified assortment and a line of newly launched plant-based alternative products, we offer our customers the assortment they are seeking.

Read more about our product sustainability, as well as progress on our 2020 Sustainability Goals.

Responsible Sourcing

Given our scope and scale, we are committed to reducing the social and environmental impacts of our supply chain by using responsible sourcing practices. Our policies, commitments and initiatives on topics like seafood, deforestation, human rights and animal welfare are charting our path towards a more sustainable and ethical supply chain.
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The Simple Truth®

Kroger’s own Simple Truth® and Simple Truth Organic® product lines continue to expand—reaching more than 2,300 unique products in 2019—and remain the second largest brand in our retail stores, based on sales. Last year, we launched several new plant-based alternative products, including the Simple Truth™ Emerge plant-based meat alternative line.

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Leading in Fair Trade Products

Kroger’s Simple Truth® and Simple Truth Organic® brand lines have more Fair Trade-certified products than any other U.S. private label brand. Our contributions to the Fair Trade-supported Community Development Funds allow farmers and growers to enhance their communities, capabilities and resilience, while also ensuring environmental sustainability. In 2019, Kroger increased the volume of Fair Trade Certified ingredients we sourced by over 70%, reaching 29.3 million pounds and 82 Simple Truth® products.

Sustainable Packaging

Sustainable packaging is a core tenet of our zero waste vision. While packaging is important for preserving product quality, freshness and integrity, we also recognize the negative impact packaging—including plastic packaging—can have on the environment. Therefore, we are focused on reducing unnecessary packaging, reusing where we can and striving for more recyclable packaging.
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Eco-Stewardship

Kroger is committed to improving sustainability by using natural resources responsibly, reducing the impact of our operations and eliminating waste. In our stores, manufacturing plants and distribution centers, we focus our efforts on increasing waste reduction and diversion, reducing energy and climate impacts, and increasing water efficiency.

Read more about our operational sustainability, as well as progress on our 2020 Sustainability Goals.

Zero Waste

As part of Zero Hunger | Zero Waste, Kroger is committed to eliminating waste across our company by 2025. As a result of our associates’ hard work, we are now diverting 80% of waste from landfill, companywide. The amount of food waste produced in our stores decreased by 4.1%, while the amount of food waste diverted from landfill increased by 5 percentage points. Through our Zero Hunger | Zero Waste Food Rescue Program, we rescued 101 million pounds of food to support our communities—while also preventing food waste in our operations.

Energy Efficiency

Reducing our carbon footprint is an important pillar in Kroger’s sustainability commitment, and we continue to invest in energy efficiency and low-carbon technologies. Increasing energy efficiency, reducing refrigerant emissions and using more renewable energy are key areas of focus.

Learn More About Our Energy Reduction Work

Renewable Energy

Adopting renewable energy helps Kroger reduce our greenhouse gas impacts. Our two anaerobic digesters turn food waste and food production byproducts into renewable biogas, while our multiple solar power installations generate clean energy. Our Paramount, Calif., distribution center hosts our largest solar array to date, while our manufacturing team activated their first solar array in early 2020 in La Habra, Calif.

A Focus On Sustainability

Our Progress

Read this Progress Update on Kroger’s 2020 Sustainability Goals.


See Our Goals

2020 Environmental, Social & Governance Report

Please visit our 2020 Environmental, Social & Governance Report for more on Kroger’s commitment to a brighter future


Visit Our Sustainability Site

Zero Hunger | Zero Waste

We are excited to work with our partners to eliminate food waste across our business by 2025.


Zero Hunger | Zero Waste

Eliminating waste across our company – achieving Zero Waste – is a top priority for Kroger. We follow the food waste hierarchy, focusing on preventing waste first, then feeding people, feeding animals, recycling and composting the rest. We believe we can make a meaningful difference to America’s hunger and waste problem.

Learn more about Zero Hunger | Zero Waste.

Eliminating waste across our company – achieving Zero Waste – is a top priority for Kroger. We follow the food waste hierarchy, focusing on preventing waste first, then feeding people, feeding animals, recycling and composting the rest. We believe we can make a meaningful difference to America’s hunger and waste problem.

Learn more about Zero Hunger | Zero Waste.

We set high quality and performance standards for all Our Brands products, whether we make them ourselves or use a third-party supplier. In order to do business with Kroger, a supplier is required to agree to our Vendor Code of Conduct, which can be found here. We have a zero tolerance policy for human rights violations. If suppliers (or their suppliers) do not live up to our Code, we will not do business with them.

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Kroger is committed to increasing the sustainability of Our Brands product packaging. Our key priorities include reducing unnecessary packaging, increasing the recyclability of our packaging and increasing the amount of recycled content in our packaging — while supporting our communities in building better recycling infrastructure and giving our customers options for recycling. By 2019, we had achieved 10.1 million pounds of plastic resin reductions in packaging for Kroger-manufactured products. This is in part the result of a 10% weight reduction in our gallon milk jug.

The glass door retrofit project rolled out to 250 stores in 2019 and will save an average of 225,000 kwh of electricity and 16,000 therms of natural gas per store annually.

The Kroger Family of Companies
open

As America’s grocer, our most urgent mission is to be here for our customers when they need us most, with open stores and openhearted hospitality. We’re taking proactive steps to protect the health and safety of our associates, customers and communities, including adjusted store operating hours, enhanced cleaning procedures, physical distancing precautions and expanded associate benefits.

For more information about Kroger’s Sharing What We’ve Learned: A Blueprint for Businesses resource guide, visit here.