Our region covers Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and the eastern part of Connecticut

38 stores total -30 in Massachusetts

4 Facilities- Bakehouse, Commissary, Seafood Processing Facility, and Distribution Center

Huge variations between rural (Hadley MA) to suburban (Framingham) to city (Symphony)

Two self contained 35 yard compactors – one for Compost and one for Trash

Baler for OCC cardboard

Container for Single Stream Recyclables

Designated areas set aside for items we backhaul to our DC – Pallets, Fish Vats, Bales of OCC, stretch plastic, # 5 plastic, redeemables for stores with RVMs, etc.

Food Donation bins - designated area in receiving

Totes for Compost

Installed in our Andover store in June 2014

First grocery store in US to have this system

We’ve since installed in our River St. Cambridge store

We have plans to install in 2 city stores – Symphony and Charles River

We plan to open a new store with this system in place in 2016

Table with Grinder

Requires electrical and plumbing

We put FRP on wall behind, and hand sink nearby

Need room around table for someone to work and a cart to be parked

Very clean, quick system overall

No room inside for tank at either Andover or River St, so it was put outside

This required insulation to ensure it doesn’t freeze in the winter – which adds to the size of the tank

We are planning to put some tanks inside which won’t require insulation

Andover Tank

Tank is sized for

estimated food

waste load, so it

gets emptied

about every 14

days. This is

flexible, and in

some cases, we

might end up

with a smaller

tank, that has to

be pumped more

often.

System works well

Any issues/concerns have been addressed quickly, great Customer service overall

It takes all food waste plus some paper (napkins, paper towels) etc

We are working with Emerson to find a solution to also include compostable containers in the future

We really like the Anaerobic Digester on a local farm component – great story and also produces energy

Pricing compared to traditional compost system is roughly equivalent, and can be better depending on distance from location to AD (hauling is variable cost)

We put the ECO2 system into two stores in November – South Weymouth and Wellesley

ECO2 system was being used in hotels and produce markets in Texas

We were the first grocery store to use this specific system

Similar technology and system to G2E – unit macerates food waste, and then sends slurry to tank.

Primary difference is this system doesn’t add any water in – so no plumbing is needed, just electrical

Nice size unit, doesn’t take up a lot of room

Added feature of a clear length of pipe so you can see the waste leaving the unit – looks cool and also allows you to see if there’s a problem with it moving along

Because there’s no water added in, the tank is smaller than with G2E

Insulation still required when placed outside – which it was in both of our pilot stores due to lack of space inside

Same basic process for being pumped, only difference is LES has their own trucks and infrastructure whereas G2E has partnered with Casella

Same destination – an anaerobic digester on a local farm – same end product.

From the start, there were certain items that could not be included – pineapple tops, meat, coffee grounds

We also were not including any paper

LES was/is working on upgrading the machine to include all food waste – and focusing on those problem areas in particular.

They made some changes which did improve the overall performance of the unit.

There were also some mechanical issues with the units

At 3 months into the pilot, we evaluated our waste diversion with this system.

It felt like we’d taken some steps backward, and more waste was going into our Trash compactor than before.

Even though they were working diligently on this we didn’t want to go backwards.

So we decided to stop using this system until they could work through these issues and give us a system that worked for all food waste plus paper.

Our goal is to divert as much as possible from our Trash stream – we are aiming for Zero Waste at all locations with maximum diversion

These systems do a great job of dealing with food waste in a clean, efficient manner – but there are some things you can’t put in that you can include in compost

Biggest challenge for us is our waxed cardboard – which is currently included in our compost loads

We are working on finding a different solution to this so we can expand the G2E system into more stores.