One of Tesco Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market's mission goals as a retailer is to be a "green" or environmental retailer, which includes focusing on energy conservation, using alternative and renewable energy sources to assist in powering it's stores and distribution centers, focusing on packaging source-reduction and recycling, reducing the use of single-use plastic carrier bags in its stores, and offering clean food and grocery products that are produced using sustainable methods, among other things.
"Green" initiatives also are designed to appeal to the growing legends of environmentally-oriented consumers who want their grocer to focus more on environmental and sustainability issues--and are willing to spend their food and grocery dollars with retailers who do so. In other words, today being a "green grocer" means far more than merely selling fresh produce.
In fact, one of Fresh & Easy senior management's charges in the recent interviews its conducted with public relations firms as part of its process of choosing a new outside PR firm, which we reported here has been done by the grocer, was for those firms pitching the company to come up with "green" or sustainable marketing ideas for Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market.
As we reported here last week, Fresh & Easy has announced an Earth Day 2008 promotion (April 22 is Earth Day) in which it will give out free reusable shopping bags made out of a synthetic type of material to store shoppers. Fresh & Easy also will replace those free "bags for life" when they wear out...for life.
[This is the only Earth Day promotion we are aware of that Fresh & Easy has launched thus far. If there are others, let us know at freshneasybuzz@yahoo.com.]
Starting today, and for the next few days leading up to Earth Day, April 22 (which is just five days away), Fresh & Easy Buzz will be highlighting and writing about some Earth Day "green" marketing and merchandising programs competing retailers internationally and in the U.S.-- especially in the Western USA where Tesco has its Fresh & Easy grocery stores--are conducting.
Related to those Earth Day 2008 marketing and merchandising programs we will talk about those respective retailers "green" or environmental initiatives, which after all are a prerequisite to conducting a "green" or sustainable retail marketing and merchandising campaign in the first place.
Environmental and sustainability issues are in the forefront globally--ranging from the mega-issue of global warming, to the soaring cost of oil, gasoline and natural gas, to reducing the amount of garbage in landfills, packaging source-reduction, the reduction in litter from single-use packaging like single-use plastic carrier bags and foam food containers, and cleaner, more sustainably-grown foods like organic and locally-produced.
The global food and grocery industry is smack in the middle of the "green" debate, and the worldwide efforts to improve sustainability on the planet.
It's with that in mind that we will be writing periodically over the next five days about efforts by global retailers (with a special emphasis on the Western USA but far from exclusively focusing on that region) to be better environmental grocers, as well as how those retailers are telling their stories with Earth Day 2008 marketing, merchandising and promotional campaigns.
The titles to all of our Earth Day 2008 pieces will begin this way: "Earth Day 2008 Feature"..... so you can identify them. [Just like the title to this introductory piece on the series begins.] We also will use a liberal amount of green colored font in the stories. :) We also will be using the official Earth Day 2008 logo at the top of this introductory piece, so you can easily identified our ongoing series over the next few days.
Look for our first piece about what specialty grocer Trader Joe's is doing in its stores in the way of Earth Day promotions tomorrow.
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