Matthew Toavs, M.S. Green Mission Specialist Whole Foods Market
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Matthew Toavs, M.S. Green Mission Specialist Whole Foods Market
Over 316 stores in USA, Canada, and UK 12 operating regions 64,000+ Team Members FY2011 Sales $10.1B
Selling the Highest Quality Natural and Organic
Products Available
Satisfying and Delighting Our Customers
Supporting Team Member Happiness and Excellence
Creating Wealth Through Profits & Growth
Caring about our Communities & Our Environment
Creating ongoing win-win partnerships with our
suppliers
Promoting the health of our stakeholders through
healthy eating education.
Selling the Highest Quality Natural and Organic
Products Available
Satisfying and Delighting Our Customers
Supporting Team Member Happiness and Excellence
Creating Wealth Through Profits & Growth
Caring about our Communities & Our Environment
Creating ongoing win-win partnerships with our
suppliers
Promoting the health of our stakeholders through
healthy eating education.
Composting is our opportunity to close a loop, recycle the nutrients contained in our food waste, and get them back into the soil to grow more food. This is much better than entombing those nutrients in a landfill and critical to us as a food company!
Without Composting With Composting
10%
25% 25%
75%
65%
Trash Recyclables Trash Recyclables Compostables
Because Whole Foods Market has a strong focus on perishables, we have a slightly higher percentage of compostables in our waste stream: 65% at WFM vs 50% or lower for other grocers.
From an audit performed at one of our Chicago locations by Waste Management’s Green Squad SM
Buy it - review spoilage and use
reporting tools to eliminate over-
ordering
Cull it - produce becomes
ingredients for other teams
Donate it - to local
food banks
Compost
it
Adapted from US EPA’s Food Hierarchy
Prep Foods makes
soup, gelato, hot
bar, salads
Meat makes stuffed
Edible items peppers, kabobs, &
garnishes their case
staged for
use on other
teams Bakery makes fruit
tarts
Produce Unclaimed items
Culls are staged for food
Inedible bank pick-up
items and
waxed Compost
cardboard go Compactor
into compost
toters Our Devon, PA store partners with two area homeless shelters to take the “Health Starts Here” message to them and to feed the patrons high quality, chef- prepared meals. Culled flowers are used for each table’s centerpiece. We wear chef coats when we serve to demonstrate that the residents are important and that we are proud to be there with them. We are culling about 1,500 pounds of usable food each month from this small store.
Where we have been able to join or establish a route system with a local composter or trash hauler, we have used the store compactor for compost rather than landfill-bound materials. Landfill then goes into a smaller top-loading dumpster.
In some other markets where no route system has been established or no industrial scale compost facility exists, our stores palletize compostable waste and backhaul it to their regional distribution center where it is consolidated and sent on to the composter.
A few stores have
partnered with local
farmers to pick up food
waste for composting on
their farms.
Our store in St Paul, MN
works with a farmer with
a route system to pick up
food waste for conversion
into hog feed. Some stores have also piloted on-site pulpers, composters, waste-to-water, dewaterers, etc. We have been approached to try a Our Lincoln Park store large scale, on-site in Chicago, IL donates vermicomposting produce waste to the system in Toronto. Lincoln Park Zoo.
We offer finished compost bagged for sale in our floral departments. Our Mid-Atlantic region repurposed pails from prepared foods and specialty departments and sold our compost in refillable buckets. Many regions work with their composter to donate compost to local community and school gardens. We can also possibly work with local vendors who might like to buy it and use it on their farms. (win-win partnerships with our suppliers!)
The North Atlantic and North East Regions’ collaboration with other grocers, MA DEP, and EPA led to the publishing of the Supermarket Composting Handbook: http://www.mass.gov/de p/recycle/reduce/smhan dbk.pdf
Concept of Compost is as old as the Earth, but it is a new language to most people. Even at WFM, new Team Members often ask, “what is compost?” Constant Training and Accountability In-Store Educators at each store and facility. We strive to erase the “just throw it away” mentality because, of course, there is no such place as “away”.
Des Moines, IA Detroit, MI Indianapolis, IN FL Oahu, HI Omaha, NE
Non-food compostables… Liners, cutlery, etc.
Certified and facility verified compostable
Weeding through the plethora of Green Washing
“Biodegradable”
GMO feed stock vs. Whole Foods Market values
Whole Foods Market has enrolled all of our private label
products in the NON GMO Project. We actively pursue
compostable packaging that is manufactured from Non-
GMO and Non-Food crops. Composting food waste is a fundamental component of our Green Mission’s quest for Sustainability. Collaborating with a wide variety of vendors and competitors has paved the way to success. Our passionate Team Members and commitment to our core values have driven Whole Foods Market to find and create a diverse array of composting programs.
Questions?
Matthew Toavs
Whole Foods Market – Global Support
550 Bowie St, Austin, TX 78703
matthew.toavs@wholefoods.comYou can also read
