Spud Sustainability - SustainabilityTracker.com

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SPUD.ca is a Canadian grocery delivery company founded in Vancouver in 1997 with a stated focus on a sustainable food system, local and organic food, and waste reduction. Its sustainability work includes reducing food waste through demand forecasting and no-display merchandising, collecting soft plastic packaging through a TakeBack program, using reusable bins and returnable containers, and removing single-use plastic water bottles from sale. The company has also linked its delivery model to lower car use and lower waste entering landfill streams. SPUD describes its delivery model as aligned with a circular economy concept.

About Spud

Status
Unverified

Website
Visit Website

Employees
100 - 500

Country
Canada

Spud Sustainability Actions

Stopped selling plastic water bottles

SPUD.ca has discontinued the sale of all single-use plastic water bottles from their website. All still, sparkling, and flavoured water will now only be available in glass bottles and aluminum cans.

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Launched Pink Bag Takeback

The company launched its Pink Bag Takeback program, an initiative that encourages SPUD.ca customers to return the packaging of Be Fresh products into their grocery bins. These reusable grocery bins are then picked up by SPUD.ca's delivery fleet and the Be Fresh packaging is recycled through the company's partnership with Terracycle.

Reduced food waste in operations

SPUD says it has the lowest food waste of any grocery retailer in Canada and has taken several steps to make waste reduction part of its business strategy. It has no food displays, and fewer hands on produce means that less gets thrown away. The company’s FoodX technology flags when a product with a short lifespan needs to go on sale, and it forecasts demand as far as two weeks in advance.

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Sells imperfect produce

SPUD also sells imperfect produce, which is typically rejected by grocery stores. To win over consumers, it has created recipes for such fruits and vegetables with local nonprofit Food Stash Foundation.

Diverts unsold food

McShane’s Food Waste Fighters team finds a home for anything the 280-employee business can’t sell: “I have, like, six food insecurity organizations on my speed dial.”

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See All (8)

Spud Sustainability Commitments

2021

Reduce plastic pollution

The Canadian government released an action plan for reducing plastic pollution by 2021, and SPUD said it was taking action rather than waiting.

2030

Zero waste journey

Van Stolk said that the journey to zero waste is long, and that SPUD wants to exemplify to its community and to the industry that every step is important.