Category Archives: Uncategorized

Kudrinko’s Ltd. president and CEO Neil Kudrinko is pleased to release the company’s 2014 Carbon Report. The report details emissions from the operation of its grocery store located at 22 Main Street in Westport and shares the company’s strategy with respect to strategic investment, energy savings, as well as social and environmental responsibility.

Questions or comments regarding the sustainability efforts of Kudrinko’s Ltd. are always welcome. Please feel free to contact Neil Kudrinko directly at 613-273-2130 or by email neil (at) kudrinkos.ca.

Kudrinko’s Ltd. president Neil Kudrinko couldn’t be happier with his latest Carbon Counted report results. “Since we began the transformation of our 1960s era grocery store into a modern energy efficient example of sound business practices I’ve always had a very specific goal in mind – getting our emissions under 100 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent.”

This milestone was easily surpassed by the Westport grocer coming in at 92.55 tonnes for 2012. While electricity usage was up for the store over 2011, the carbon emissions per kilowatt hour on the Ontario grid was lower than previous years due increased green energy production and the continued phasing out of coal.

“Every business continues to look at new programs that we can run in our stores to increase sales. In 2012 we expanded out hot food sales and added more equipment in our kitchen,” said Kudrinko. “The challenge for store operators is to offset these new processes by reducing consumption in other areas. Last year’s improvements included retrofitting our freezers with LED lights.”

The store has been tracking its energy consumption and refrigerant losses using Carbon Counted since 2007 in conjunction with the Canadian Federation of Independent Grocers’ Environmental Sustainability Initiative. Setting benchmarks and giving context to expense line items such as energy has allowed Kudrinko’s to be very strategic in making money saving investments.

“You can’t tackle a problem unless you have a means of measuring it,” said Kudrinko. “We’ll keep looking to lower our consumption numbers, add savings to the bottom line, and do something good for the environment.”

Click here to download Kudrinko`s 2012 Carbon Counted Report:  crvEmissionsBySite.

We’re pleased to share the feature article from December’s Progressive Grocer Independent issue highlighting the efforts that we have made as a company to deliver a top quality grocery operation. Martha and I are proud of the store that we offer to Westport and the Rideau Lakes and we continue to invest in our business for the benefit of our community. Click on the cover to view the article, it will download as a PDF file.

If the grocery industry in the United States has a figure that is worthy of term “rock star”, in my estimation that person is Sam Mogannam. Sam shares a passion for food which is hard to find and he’s used that passion to not only build an exceptional grocery business, he’s also used that passion to rebuild a community in the process.  Check out this great video presentation of Sam’s talk at TedxPresidio.

Check out my recent blog post on Canadian Grocer magazine’s website.

The Greening of Grocers

Last Thursday, September 20, grocery industry professionals gathered in Toronto forCanadian Grocer’s Commitment to Sustainability conference, proclaiming sustainability has moved beyond the carbon footprint of store operations and now must also consider broader implications of procurement decisions.

For those who skipped this conference fearing that it would be a tree-hugging, granola-crunching, Birkenstock-wearing love in, throw your stereotypes aside.

Sustainability is increasingly becoming the language of business.

Resource scarcity is leading to resource efficiency and with those changes businesses increasingly have to adjust their practices in order to ensure profitability in a changing business environment.

David Smith, VP of sustainability at Sobeys; Bob Chant senior VP, corporate affairs and communication at Loblaw; and John Coyne, VP legal and external affairs with Unilever all presented a vision of our industry that incorporates a different set of standards than we have employed in the past.

Smith began his segment with a picture of four earths.

His message being that demographic changes and an increasingly middle-class global population would continue to place pressures on the food industry.

With 80 per cent of the world population projected to be middle-class by 2030, four earths would be needed to support current consumption patterns, based on present practices.

The challenge: increase food production by 50 per cent, while addressing a waste factor of 40 per cent, and do so without further impacting the environment.

Bob Chant made it clear that sustainability is also on the minds of decision makers at Loblaw.

Canada’s largest grocer is zeroing in on areas with the most impact and focusing on consumers.

Chant shed some light on the mindset of consumers point out that most consumers expect price parity with traditional products and that sustainability is mostly viewed as a value add, not a chargeable commodity. With this in mind, Chant added, “Voluntarism cannot crack where we need to be.”

Perhaps the most poignant question of the day came from panelist John Coyne. In addressing Chant point on voluntarism, Coyne asked, “How do we remove the dirty discount?”

The economy must change in order to deal with shifting landscapes.

Finite resources are going to become more expensive and governments will continue to feel pressure to deal with the effects of environmental degradation caused by the effects of an increasingly affluent world population.

At some point governments will have to address resource consumption with some type of regulation or tax scheme to address problems such as carbon emissions and water use.

In the meantime, these three companies seem intent on addressing the issues before governments mandate change.

Following the panel discussion I asked John Coyne what message he had for companies that are either apathetic or dismissive to his call for change. His response: “I’ve got four words for them; listen; learn; ask us.”

Sobeys, Loblaw, and Unilever for their part aren’t viewing sustainability as a matter of competitive advantage as much as they are committed to changing the systemic problems of an inefficient, outdated industry model based on plentiful, inexpensive resources.

If you’re not considering how your business will function in this new economy, you’re likely to be left behind.