Food lion a pioneer in 'GreenChill' trend

MMR, Oct 6, 2008

SALISBURY, N.C. -- Food Lion LLC made energy conservation a company priority more than a decade ago. As a result, it has received seven consecutive EnergyStar awards from the Environmental Protection Agency and has more stores (725 out of some 1,300 in the chain) that have earned Energy Star ratings than any other supermarket operator.

In January 2007 Food Lion was one of the first chains to voluntarily commit to the EPA's GreenChill refrigeration partnership, in which companies pledge to exceed regulatory requirements in protecting the ozone layer and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Under the partnership, Food Lion committed to three main guidelines or objectives:

* Ensuring that all new and remodeled stores would be "ozone-friendly" in advance of Clean Air Act phaseout requirements.

* Establishing an emissions inventory that will be used to set emissions reduction targets.

* Participating in an industry/ government research initiative to judge the performance of advanced technologies in its stores.

Even before joining the GreenChill program, Food Lion had been working with Hill PHOENIX, a leading designer and maker of commercial refrigeration systems, to develop ozone-friendly product refrigeration systems. Early in 2006 Food Lion opened the first of three outlets to use a system called Second Nature developed by Hill PHOENIX.

The first outlet, in Dinwiddie, Va., has a medium-temperature secondary coolant system that uses water and glycol to refrigerate products. The second store, in Montpelier, Va., is testing a system that uses carbon dioxide to refrigerate low-temperature food products. A third location, in Portsmouth, Va., opened last April and uses the medium- and low-temperature systems.

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At the Portsmouth opening, Dave Godwin, acting branch chief of the EPA's stratospheric protection division, paid tribute to Food Lion's efforts.

"The EPA's GreenChill Partnership is very proud to recognize Food Lion's continued leadership in ozone-layer protection," Godwin said. "Food Lion's environmental innovations in advanced refrigeration technology are exemplary within the supermarket industry."

According to Susan Sollenberger, director of equipment purchasing, maintenance and energy and a 19-year veteran at Food Lion, the carbon dioxide system is the truly innovative element in the second and third test stores.

"Carbon dioxide is used in the industrial sector and in Europe, but in the United States there's been a lot of theory and discussion but not much willingness to test it," she says. Food Lion was the first supermarket operator to test it here, although the Sam's Club division of Wal-Mart Stores Inc. also is testing carbon dioxide, she adds.

The technology is not yet ready for rollout, Sollenberger cautions. From the tests, Food Lion hopes to learn if the technology will deliver the desired results.

"We want to make it feasible economically to put in all our new stores," she says. "But we have to get enough data on the energy use, the benefit of extended product life and reduced shrinkage to see if it makes sense. Our goal is to save energy, reduce emissions and make product last longer."

Sollenberger adds that the company, together with Hill PHOENIX, is tweaking the design and improving it as the test proceeds.

The carbon dioxide systems are not suitable for retrofitting in Food Lion's current stores, according to Sollenberger, who says that if the system is adopted it will be deployed only in new stores.

"In our existing stores we're testing new refrigerants so we can convert from ozone-depleting gases to nonozone-depleting gas," she explains. "The newer refrigerants have a high global warming potential, though, so we're trying to find alternatives."