Consider The Source

By sourcing store brand products from suppliers that boast a strong commitment to environmental responsibility, retailers truly can show their dedication to the planet — and the consumers living on it.

When it comes to environmental responsibility, most food, drug and mass merchandise retailers already are engaging in store-level initiatives such as recycling, energy conservation and the sale of reusable shopping bags. Many of them even are looking beyond the store — performing pre-purchase environmental assessments on real estate, for example, or investing in fuel-efficient vehicles.

Although such efforts certainly are commendable, retailers might be overlooking another major area that is ripe for a "green" overhaul: their own product lineup. By sourcing store brand products from suppliers that boast a strong commitment to responsible ingredient/ raw material sourcing, green manufacturing practices and/ or sustainable packaging, retailers truly can show their dedication to the planet — and the consumers living on it.

Why bother?

To those who believe efforts here would be too difficult and costly, or that shoppers really don't give a darn: Think again. Many private label suppliers have made much progress in the environmental arena while managing to slash costs at the same time. And according to David Spectre, a founding partner of Israel-based 4C — a provider of consulting and product development services within the environmental sustainability arena — consumer awareness of environmental issues continues to grow.

"People are interested in getting more information about the products they consume," he says. "Investing in environmental responsibility is really much more of a strategic investment than anything else."

Information about companies or products also is easy to come by these days, Spectre notes, making eco-related marketing ploys and greenwashing big no-nos. He points to the GoodGuide Inc.'s website (www.goodguide.com) as an example. The site provides health, environment and social responsibility ratings for consumer products. (A GoodGuide ¡Phone app even allows users to scan a product in the store and get its rating.)

And if the United States and Canada eventually go the way of Europe with its European Packaging Directive, as Spectre expects, legislation could make things like excess packaging costly to brand owners — retailers included.

Dr. Joyce Tsoi, environmental program manager for STR Responsible Sourcing, Enfield, Conn., says today's retailers need an action plan to meet growing stakeholder demands and NGO pressure for quality and ethically and environmentally responsible production.

"Retailers need to demonstrate to the world that they are capable of making significant contributions to resolving part of the world's environmental problems," she says.

Tsoi notes that some retailers are starting to develop their own environmental programs to track the environmental performance of suppliers and communicate requirements down the supply chain. To increase transparency and accountability, some "proactive" retailers even are including specifics on supplier-related environmental performance within their annual or sustainability reports.

"Many retailers use outside experts like STR Responsible Sourcing to provide strategic advice and direction on their program development stages, to track suppliers' performance on their behalf and to educate and facilitate changes on the ground," she adds.

Start right

From an environmental perspective, one of the first considerations for supplier selection should be the responsible sourcing of materials and ingredients. This step is particularly critical for product categories in which resources are limited or produced in ways that can be harmful to the land.

As a supplier of store brand bathroom tissue, paper towels, facial tissue and napkins, Spokane, Wash.-based Clearwater Paper Corp. understands that the millions of tons of tissue products produced and consumed each year in North America place a large demand on natural resources. That's why the company made a commitment to procure fiber from sources that are Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certified, says Bruce Woodlief, director of marketing for Clearwater Paper.

"FSC certification promotes healthy, well-managed forests," he explains. "Retail customers of Clearwater Paper have the opportunity to have select products packaged with FSC and Rainforest Alliance seals that confirm that their products come from good fiber sources."

Woodlief says FSC certification also provides retailers with a differentiating claim; the larger national brands are not yet marketing such products, as the fiber is in limited supply.

Coffee beans often represent another sourcing concern. For example, slash-and-burn agricultural practices commonly used in Brazil render the farmed land infertile, so farmers simply move on and repeat the process elsewhere. That's why the Rogers Family Co. of Lincoln, Calif., aims to teach farmers better production methods that not only result in a higher-quality bean, but also respect the land on which the beans are grown.

Jon Rogers, who founded Rogers Family Co. with his wife Barbara, notes that the company insists on medium- and high-growth shade trees — on the coffee farms it owns and on those from which it buys beans.

"A high-growth, medium-shade coffee farm reduces about 20 tons of carbon dioxide per hectare," he notes.

The company also is testing a fertilizer made from shade tree trimmings. The trimmings are burned in a limited-oxygen environment, mixed with bacteria and planted in holes surrounding the coffee trees.

"So far, the results are fantastic," Rogers says. "We have reduced the amount of fertilizer that we use by 40 percent, and we're getting a healthier root structure and healthier coffee trees."

Another green farming process that Rogers Family Co. introduced uses billions of red earthworms to digest and help transform coffee waste into organic fertilizer. The practice slashes the need for chemical and synthetic fertilizers.

Rogers Family Co. says it funded a project to transfer the existing technology — used successfully in Ciapas, Mexico, and Selva Negra, Nicaragua — to its own Finca Santa Barbara model organic farm in Panama.

"The goal was to improve the system and treat, transform and recycle some 5,000 tons of coffee pulp contaminating the Caldera River in Boquete, Panama, into a nutrient-rich fertilizer to give an incentive to small coffee holders and promote organic coffee production," says Dr. Mario Serracin, the company's agronomist.

The earthworms have helped restore Boquete residents' drinking water supply and livelihood, Rogers Family Co. notes. Moreover, the company since has introduced the California red wriggly worm into two continents.

Yet another technology Rogers Family Co. is employing uses biodigester systems to help clean up contaminated rivers and produce clean biogas energy from waste to power Central American organic coffee farms. The company says the systems clean the wastewater in the wet milling process, and recycle it back into the treatment of coffee bean waste. At the same time, biogas is taken out of the process and used to fuel the bean-drying process. The use of biogas also helps reduce the felling of trees in the coffee-drying and cooking processes.

Natural resource optimization also is important to Heartland Sweeteners, explains Craig Coulon, director, corporate brand sales. The Indianapolis-based manufacturer of sugar substitutes created the "ER" internal auditing program (with ER being short for environmental responsibility) several years ago and includes the ER logo on its products to signify the products were made with an eye toward environmentally responsible processes.

The program's objectives are 1) to identify opportunities for improved resource allocation, 2) to develop action plans to minimize waste and 3) to execute the plan, record the savings and repeat the process year after year. Natural resource optimization is an important part of the first objective, Coulon notes.

"In the future, we intend to require suppliers to become ER certified to supply Heartland with products and services," he adds. "We also expect to post our achievements on our website so customers and consumers can have access."

Another store brand supplier that is placing eco-requirements on its own suppliers is Global Reliance Inc., the Hamilton, N.J.-based marketing arm of Himalya International Ltd. of India, which produces a variety of all-natural vegetables, dairy products, meals, soups, appetizers and desserts.

Sanjiv Kakkar, president of Global

Reliance, says the company carries out environmental audits on its suppliers and also educates them on the use of green technologies.

"We provide technical assistance to our suppliers to reduce their carbon footprint," he adds. "We encourage companies to use agro waste as fuel instead of fossil fuels."

Spent mushroom compost also is a big concern for mushroom farms, which companies such as Global Reliance rely on for sourcing. Kakkar notes that Pennsylvania has a significant pollution problem related to mushroom composting, as Kennett Square, Pa., is "the mushroom capital of the world" in terms of farming. The many, many tons of spent mushroom compost generated daily are moved to open land and subjected to rain and snow for two years before being suitable for use as a "marginal" plant fertilizer.

"During this two-year period, nitrites and nitrates in large quantities are leached into the ground, as the spent compost has a large quantity of salts," Kakkar explains.

"This enormous leaching is affecting the quality of groundwater in Chester County — the level of nitrites and nitrates has gone up substantially."

But Global Reliance developed a biodynamic process to address the issue, Kakkar says. The process is accomplished via the aerobic (with oxygen) decomposition of organic materials under controlled conditions — essentially, the microorganisms consume oxygen while feeding on organic matter, converting the mushroom compost into a bioorganic "manure" within eight weeks and preventing salts from leaching into the groundwater. The process not only reduces the mass and volume of the final product, but also results in a manure that is ideal for plants and gardens.

Ponder production

Manufacturing facility energy-efficiencies, waste reduction and other eco-minded efforts also go a long way in improving a store brand product's "green quotient." A number of private label manufacturers are raising the bar here.

One such supplier is Shearer's Foods Inc. of Brewster, Ohio, which recently opened the first snack food manufacturing facility to receive LEED Platinum certification from the Washington, D.C.-based U.S. Green Building Council.

Located in Massillon, Ohio, the Millennium facility boasts a number of innovative green-minded processing technologies, including an infrared burner oven that slashes natural gas use by 47 percent, an enclosed cavity oven design that reduces oven draft by more than 60 percent, a low-water cook process preheated with recovered waste energy, and much more.

"Recent years have shown the importance of sustainability matching that of price, service, quality and safety as variables most valued by customers in making choices in their supply chains," Melissa Shearer, the company's vice president of communications, told Progressive Grocer's Store Brands last fall. "Shearer's commitment to sustainability in the design, construction and operation of the LEED Platinum site has risen to meet these market demands."

Also taking the LEED certification route is Summer Garden Food Manufacturing of Youngstown, Ohio, which specializes in upscale Italian sauces under its own labels and store brands. According to the company, all material going into the building is obtained from within a 50-mile radius, minimizing fuel usage and cutting hydrocarbon emissions. The company also boasts a proprietary cooling system that uses the natural Ohio environment to chill its water. In addition, windows and overhead tiles in the production area and warehouse let in natural light to allow lights to be turned off during daylight hours.

To minimize waste, Summer Garden recycles 95 percent of the scrap it produces at its facility. The company says it also is looking into a water reclamation system for some of its cleaning systems, as well as an environmental management system PLC that would automatically turn lighting on and off based on sensor readings.

"When we built Summer Garden Food Manufacturing, it was our goal to not only build a forward-thinking manufacturing facility, but one with a conscience," notes Linda McNally, the company's vice president of customer development.

Another environmental super-achiever on the manufacturing front is Heartland Sweeteners. The company invested in state-of-the-art equipment that uses less energy while producing products faster, and with less waste, Coulon says. Heartland also developed a more efficient, less energy-intensive method to produce sucralose, a popular sugar substitute.

A few of the company's other efforts — many of them proprietary — include implementation of a "dry cleaning" technology that reduces water use in the cleaning method; execution of a method whereby emissions are filtered and reused to heat the plant in the winter; and a plant configuration that minimizes the number of forklift trips.

Coulon notes that the company's suppliers also are committed to environmental responsibility. For example, their production techniques do not rely on class 1 or class 2 ozone-depleting chemicals such as fluorocarbons and hydrofluorocarbons.

"Net-net, all of this gives the retailer the opportunity to present the products that we produce for them as the most eco-friendly items in our class," Coulon says.

Also shining brightly on the manufacturing end is Global Reliance, which bills itself as a zero waste company — a feat that Kakkar stresses is difficult to achieve in a food processing plant.

"All the wastewater from our plant is filtered, treated and used in making mushroom compost," he says. "We provide to [customers] an all-natural range of products packed in an environmentally responsible company which believes in zero waste and recycling extensively."

Rethink the package

Yet another environmental aspect to consider is the package into which a product is placed. And as 4C's Spectre points out, a greener package also can result in cost savings for both the supplier and the retailer.

For example, if a supplier is packaging juice into commonly used but difficult-to-recycle layered juice boxes (which typically contain three to six layers of paper, plastic and aluminum) and runs into a problem on the production line, it cannot reintroduce those products back into production. However, if it uses a more sustainable type of package — one designed for recycling — the company then potentially could take that product, grind it up and remanufacture it, driving production costs down.

One of the first things 4C does to pinpoint green product opportunities for its customers is to perform a lifecycle assessment (LCA), Spectre adds.

"When we do an LCA, you not only understand where a specific manufacturer is today, but you also get a pretty clear picture of what the other opportunities are in say a different material," he explains. "We do a more encompassing LCA, which really talks about what countries you're going into, what the recycling opportunities are in that country and what consumers are looking for in that country."

Recycled content and reductions in material usage also are greener packaging options, assuming the revamped package still protects the product it encases.

For example, Mother Parkers Tea & Coffee, Fort Worth, Texas, converted its private label, Brown Gold and Martinson brands from metal coffee cans to more environmentally responsible paperboard composite containers from Hartsville, S.C.-based Sonoco. According to Sonoco, the rigid paper containers contain more recycled content and weigh less than cans.

As a bonus, the containers are less expensive to produce and ship than metal cans, Sonoco says, but perform as well as metal canisters in terms of abuse resistance and shelf life. They are spiral-wound from 100 percent recycled paperboard and include a high-barrier liner that locks out moisture and locks in product aroma and taste.

Communicate to consumers

Although retailers should find it fairly easy to convey to shoppers the environmental message behind obviously "eco-friendly" store brand products such as organic foods and chemical-free cleaners, communicating behind-the-scenes efforts in responsible ingredient sourcing, greener manufacturing and packaging poses a greater challenge. Heartland's Coulon advises using the packaging itself to get the word out — with "romance" copy that explains that the product meets the retailer's standards for a green manufactured product.

For products sourced from Heartland, "they can include the ER logo on their packages and describe what that logo means to consumers when faced with making a choice," he adds.

Global Reliance also is able to include a notation on its store brand packaging that a product was "packed in a facility committed to having a low carbon footprint by using eco-friendly technology and recycling extensively," Kakkar notes.

STR's Tsoi agrees that "correct and accurate labeling" is the best way to communicate greener manufacturing and other practices. But she says the retailer also must explain to shoppers what those labels mean. Education could be accomplished on the package, on the shelf and/or via the retailer's website.

Point-of-sale signage, too, works well as a communication tool, Clearwater Paper's Woodlief notes. Retailers also could highlight a product's eco-certification in their weekly ad circulars with a product shot of their own brand products, he adds.

No matter what the communication vehicle, it's really about "tailoring that information to consumers, depending on consumer awareness," Spectre maintains.

The GoodGuide website, www.goodguide.com, provides health, environment and social responsibility ratings for consumer products.

'Retailers need to demonstrate to the world that they are capable of making significant contributions to resolving part of the world's environmental problems.'

'We provide to [customers] an all-natural range of products packed in an environmentally responsible company which believes in zero waste and recycling extensively.'