Planning for Tomorrow

We understand that we play an important part in today’s local business community – and we also have a responsibility to plan for our role in the wider community of tomorrow.

We are happy, therefore, to make the following commitments…

We are committed to clear and relevant labelling
By the end of 2007 all products will carry Guidance Daily Allowances on labels.

We are committed to food safety
The majority of our products are ‘own label’. So we have more control over how our foods are produced. We are also currently working hard on removing all harmful ‘e’ numbers.

We are committed to locally sourced produce
Our fruit and vegetables are locally sourced wherever possible. We also have very clear annual programmes developed with plant suppliers to source locally grown plants for our horticultural products.

We are committed to cutting unnecessary packaging and plastic usage
We have no plastic wrappers around the outside of our packages. This saves 2000 tonnes of plastic per year. All our fresh produce is supplied in returnable produce crates - saving around 5000 tonnes of plastic per year. All lemonade, soft drinks and bread can be transported in the same crates.

All our cardboard is recycled - and has been from day one. (We’ve also always charged for all our carrier bags!)

We are committed to responsible energy usage
We only use environmentally friendly, energy efficient freezers.

Our distribution centres aim to minimises the amount of road travel meaning a lower carbon footprint compared with other supermarket retailers.

We are committed to our people
We recognise that our staff are our most valuable asset. This can be proved by the fact we are the only retailer in the Sunday Times Top 10 Employers and the Training & Development in Industry Top 10.