Fresh & Easy to Open Second GreenChill Certified Store

EL SEGUNDO, Calif., Sept. 20 /PRNewswire/ -- Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market will open its second GreenChill certified store at Oceanside Blvd. & College Blvd. in Oceanside, California on Wednesday. Two weeks ago, Fresh & Easy opened its first GreenChill store in Rosemead, California, which was also the first grocery store in Southern California to utilize a CO2 refrigeration unit.

Fresh & Easy worked closely with partners Kysor/Warren and Southwest Refrigeration on the Oceanside store, which earned its silver certification award from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) GreenChill Partnership by meeting tough benchmarks for cutting emissions that harm the earth's protective ozone layer and contribute to global warming. Fewer than 40 of the nation's 35,000 grocery stores have received GreenChill Store Certification awards.

"Fresh & Easy's commitment to the environment through reducing refrigerant emissions is commendable," said Keilly Witman, Manager of EPA's GreenChill Partnership. "We're excited to see Fresh & Easy open its second GreenChill certified store this month!"

On average, Fresh & Easy stores use 30% less energy than a typical supermarket – helping save customers money while helping the environment. Fresh & Easy uses LED lighting in external signs and freezer cases, offers customer recycling in every store, and uses advanced refrigeration and freezer units to cut back on energy usage.

Steve Hagen, Fresh & Easy's Director of Procurement presenting at the FMI Energy & Store Development Conference said today, "In addition to our efforts to reduce refrigerant emissions, we also are working on innovative ways to save energy, such as utilizing skylights, LED lighting and technological advancements like EnviroTower, which saves a significant amount of water in our stores."

Fresh & Easy is opening nine stores in California this month, including three stores in San Diego County this week.

About Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market

Fresh & Easy operates 165 stores in California, Arizona and Nevada. In addition to fresh prepared meals, meats and produce, Fresh & Easy offers everyone's favorite national brand products and household items, all at unbelievably low prices. The grocer's popular fresh&easy brand products have no artificial colors or flavors, no added trans fats, no high-fructose corn syrup, and only use preservatives when absolutely necessary.

Fresh & Easy opened its first LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Gold certified store last year and is a pilot member of the LEED Volume Certification Program. The company has also joined the California Climate Action Registry and The Climate Registry to disclose its greenhouse gas emissions. At its distribution center in Riverside, CA, the company invested $13 million in a solar roof installation, which at 500,000 square feet is one of California's largest.

For more information about Fresh & Easy, visit www.freshandeasy.com. Also follow the company on Twitter at: www.twitter.com/fresh_and_easy and become a fan on Facebook at www.facebook.com/freshandeasy.  

About GreenChill

EPA's GreenChill Partnership works with food retailers to reduce refrigerant emissions and decrease their impact on the ozone layer and climate change. Under the agreement with the EPA, Fresh & Easy works to achieve to the following:

• Transition to refrigerants that have a lower environmental impact;
• Lower refrigerant charge sizes and eliminate leaks; and
• Adopt green refrigeration technologies, strategies, and practices.

According to the EPA, GreenChill's food retail partners have refrigerant emissions rates 50% lower than the EPA-estimated industry average. If every supermarket in the nation reduced refrigerant emissions down to GreenChill's average, they could prevent the equivalent of 22,000,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide from entering the atmosphere every year. That is equal to the annual greenhouse gas emissions of 4.2 million passenger vehicles. In addition, these stores would save over $100 million every year, which would help customers save money too.

More information about the EPA's GreenChill Partnership is available at www.epa.gov/greenchill.

SOURCE Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market

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