PHOTOGRAPHY BY FREDDY PULIDO 1st ANNUAL PRODUCE BUSINESS …

M A Y 2 0 0 9 • P R O D U C E B U S I N E S S 19

PRODUCE BUSINESS is proud to announce the recog-nition of Lakeland, FL-based Publix Super MarketsInc. this year for its exceptional leadership in development of sustainable strategies resulting insignificant value-added benefits and deliveringgreater operating efficiencies. The following pagesprovide insights to the subtle approach of corpo-rate social responsibility at this southern chain of1,002 stores.

1st ANNUAL

PRODUCE BUSINESSRetail Sustainability Award

PRINTED ON RECYLED PAPER

PHOTOGRAPHY BY FREDDY PULIDO

P R O D U C E B U S I N E S S • M A Y 2 0 0 920

Talk is cheap and for some compa-nies, sustainability is being com-posted, compacted and recycledinto a public relations buzzwordpolluted by smoke and mirrors.

Publix Super Markets, the private, employ-ee-owned, regional giant, which has shiedaway from the trade press over the years,prefers subtle sustainability grounded in sub-stance. More comfortable keeping businessstrategies close to the belt, the supermarketchain has been making a genuine differencewith understated determination and purpose-ful momentum, long before sustainability andcorporate social responsibility were hip andfashionable, and often cloaked in syntheticethical and moral superiority.

Publix deserves this award for three signifi-cant reasons:

1) PUBLIX WITH PURPOSETop Down, Bottom Up: Exercising corpo-

rate social responsibility within the communi-ty is a mantra engrained in the firm’s culture, along-term commitment instilled by its CEO,Ed Crenshaw, and encouraged with incen-tivized employee buy-in.

Crenshaw’s grandfather and Publixfounder, George Jenkins, had a saying — para-phrased here — that the company can be a lit-tle bit better place, or not quite as good,because of the associates of the company.“Years later, that still resonates. It’s in all ourbreak rooms and it’s something that we verymuch live by,” explains Maria Brous, directorof media and community relations. Sheshould know. It’s her 19th year with Publixand she describes herself as a “Publix lifer.”

Valued voices are indeed resonatingthroughout. Publix generates a grassrootsatmosphere of fresh, innovative ideas andinter-department, cross-functional teamworkat all levels. The process involves brainstorm-ing and debating the merits and costs of dif-ferent proposals, then testing and re-workingplatforms before slowly rolling them out tomake sustainability a reality chain-wide.

An associate in the floral department came

up with a great idea to recycle floral buckets,conducting a little work study in her store.“We recycle several million of those bucketsevery year now,” says Michael Hewitt, manag-er, environmental services, noting, “If we hadnot pushed sustainability all the way down tothe associate level, then those kinds of ideaswould not be able to bubble back up.”

Hewitt, a second-generation Floridian andlifelong Publix customer, joined the companyabout three years ago to apply his expertise inenvironmental engineering and years workingwith various regulatory agencies and other pri-vate companies. “When I got to Publix, I wasvery excited because what I found was a cul-ture already in place. People were passionateabout not just the basics of recycling and ener-gy conservation and water conservation, butreally interested in doing the right thing andsupporting the community.”

In talking about sustainability, sometimesthe “people element” gets lost, Hewitt empha-sizes. “When Publix is looking for new talent— for that next generation that’s going to runthe company — the message of sustainabilityis another way for us to reach out to that tal-ent pool,” he says. People want to be a part ofsomething, to feel that their input counts.Hewitt continues, “Young people, especiallycoming out of college, are willing to take a jobfor less money if it’s with a company theybelieve in, that they admire, that they believeis doing the right thing.”

“We all have skin in the game,” says Brous.“This is a personal investment and commit-ment, and you’ll hear that throughout ourcompany.” Once you’re on board, everybody’sin the same place with the same intensity andexpectations. In an industry haunted by laborissues and employee turnover, the evidencespeaks for itself: It is estimated that the firmspends an average of $6,000 in training of itsassociates within their first 30 days, and themajority of turnover happens within the first90 days. Store managers average 25.4 years ofservice, she says, noting a district manager justreceived his 55th year service award; it’s notuncommon to see associates that are “lifers.”

Brous points out that Dave Duncan, vicepresident for facilities, likes to say Publix wasgreen when it wasn’t cool to be green, leadingthe way in this effort since the 1970’s, whetherdriving early customer acceptance of reusablegrocery bags and recycling efforts, or drivingthe first hybrid cars.

“We have one of the most environmentallyfriendly fleets, with over 170 light-duty hybridvehicles,” says Hewitt. The benefit is not justfuel savings. It also helps reduce our carbonfootprint and sends the right message. “Sus-tainability is not a destination, it’s a journey,”prophesizes Hewitt. “Sustainability is really aphilosophy that’s been with Publix since thebeginning, and it’s one that will continue foras long as Publix continues.”

The commitment to excellence in sustain-ability extends to its supplier partnerships.Publix demands high standards internally andexpects the same of its produce suppliers,which it monitors and grades using vendorscore cards. Brous acknowledges Publix isoften viewed as a tough retailer. How sustain-ability fits into a firm’s operations in the con-text of its strategic vision is a decisive factor inthe relationship’s viability.

Some produce partnerships remain solidlyensconced, after being sealed decades ago ona handshake. Brous explains, “There is defi-nitely a motivator for them to understand ourbusiness more. We tell them, ‘The better youperform at all of these criteria, the more we’rewilling to sit at the table because we under-stand your commitment, and vice versa.” Thatcommitment means a willingness to investwith Publix in more sustainable alternatives,such as wax-free packaging.

PUBLIX SUPER MARKETS:

Subtle Sustainability With SubstanceBY MIRA SLOTT


“Just as Publix cannot be sustainable with-out the participation of all 146,000 associates,we’re also not an island. We cannot be sus-tainable without partnering with our entiresupply chain,” says Hewitt. “Sustainability isnot proprietary,” adds Brous. “We believe it isan industry movement that shares on bestpractices and we are more powerful together,”she says, noting joint efforts with retail com-petitors and trade organizations. The firm’slatest venture involves a “climate leaders’ part-nership” with the Environmental ProtectionAgency, and a verification process to certifyand reduce its carbon footprint.

“In a company the size of Publix, withretail operations spread out across five states,manufacturing and distribution operations aswell as various other support facilities, it is achallenge to capture all of those greenhousegases, but we are doing it,” Hewitt adds.

2) SUSTAINABILITY WITH SUBSTANCEActions & Results: Publix takes a compre-

hensive and multi-faceted approach, underthe premise that sustainability is made up ofthree silos; environmental, social and eco-nomic. All three silos must work in tandem.Many environmental aspects get prioritybecause they can often generate cash flow byreducing energy costs, for example. Addressingfuel efficiency of its transportation fleet, thecompany is weighing the pros and cons ofconverting its heavy-duty trucks to bio dieseland looking at mechanical and aerodynamicimprovements, as well as restructuring deliv-ery routes to reduce number of miles traveledand increase utilization rates of those trucks.

Other worthy projects might be tabledbecause they can’t be justified from a coststandpoint. “At the end of the day, we havestockholders that we answer to, which is eachone of us in being able to be a financiallyviable company,” Brous explains. After theGreenWise Market in Palm Beach Gardensbecame LEED-certified, people wonderedwhether Publix would do the same for all itsnew stores. “Well, no. That’s unrealistic tolook at a grocer with a 1,000 store footprintand ask us that. What’s the economic impact?What’s the long-term affect? What’s our goaland how does that impact the customer? Arewe being responsible stewards? “

“The ‘Get Into the New Green Routine’program grew out of a philosophy at Publixthat is intolerant of waste, and advocatingwhat’s right for its customers, the communityand the environment. That equates to a reduc-tion of 500,000 tons of greenhouse gases,enough to power over 64,000 homes for ayear,” explains Hewitt.

Publix recycled 215,00 tons of cardboardlast year, and about 3,000 tons of that waswax cardboard. “We also have been trying to

find a home for as much of our organic wastematerial as possible, working on ways to com-post, or otherwise convert that material into asoil amendment or a fertilizer-type product.”

Publix utilizes its GreenWise Markets asexperimental laboratories, perfecting ideasinto workable solutions with its eye on incor-porating them into its mainstream portfolio.Go into a new store, and a consumer mightnot realize the significant savings generated bythe decorative, yet highly sustainable bamboofloors and fixtures. It’s why Publix uses soycoating on the roof and is aggressively pursu-ing solar power. Among its forward-thinkingreclamation projects, the produce refrigerationducts are efficiently re-circulating the heat towarm the building’s water systems. The mis-ters keep produce fresh without excess waterwaste. The track lighting may be aestheticallypleasing to some customers, but it’s also amore energy-efficient source. Consumerswalking down an aisle may be caught offguard at first, as the lighting builds from dark-ness to brightness in line with their footsteps— a high-tech method of conserving energy.

Even though the fluorescent lights arecool-looking, you can feel that they’re puttingoff a little bit of heat, explains Hewitt. TheLEDs are not only more efficient, but generatemuch less heat, which makes sense whenyou’re installing lights into a refrigerated case.There’s an argument against retrofitting refrig-erator cases with LEDs because of the immedi-ate investment. It’s justified because over thelifespan of the cases and the products, there’sdefinitely a return, adds Brous. In the pre-pared foods areas, Publix is working on newtechnology to avoid as much air conditioningor heat loss as possible through the ventila-tion hoods.

GreenWise Markets provides a controlledarea to try new things, but the company is alsorealistic in how they will translate to a rangeof store formats. “Our goal is to be able to gointo any format or size store and maximize its

potential, but starting from the ground up isdefinitely easier,” says Brous.

As retailers confront a difficult economicclimate, Publix is relatively well-positioned topursue its goals. “In tough economic times,we are a debt-free company. We are makingacquisitions. We continue to be strong,” saysBrous. Priorities change based on consumerneeds, and the economy plays a significantpart, but the commitment level doesn’tchange. “We can take more risk in a tougheconomy, but we’ve always been very cau-tious,” she adds. “We are a very lean company.There’s not a whole lot of fluff and excess.”

3) SUBTLE STRATEGYClassy, Not Showy: Publix steers away from

“save the polar bears” hype, or flashy, over-the-top signage. It doesn’t want to yield unfairexpectations, or veer toward exaggerated ormisleading claims. “We don’t believe in funnymath,” says Brous.

Publix chooses to stay out of politics andissues of Fair Trade, says Hewitt. “We don’tlike anybody coming into our house telling ushow to do business. We don’t go into otherpeople’s either.”

In this regard, the concept of developingnational standards for sustainability doesn’tmake sense to Hewitt. “Sustainability reallyhas a lot to do with company philosophy. It’svery company-specific. I like to think that oursustainability strategy is unique to Publix, notto say that it’s better than anyone else’s, but itworks well for us.”

The company is turned off by the dogmaaround food miles labeling. Transparency inlabeling is important. “We want to be carefulnot to confuse the customer by providingthem with information that might be hard tounderstand or is contradictory,” says Hewitt.“It can be very complex. It can be so complexthat if you look at the carbon footprint of aproduct, one product that might be consid-ered a healthy choice might have a larger car-


definition of local is different to every person.This year, Publix kicked off a huge media blitzto elevate its three-year-old program, “At Sea-son’s Peak,” which highlights in-season localproduce, playing to the taste, freshness andspecial availability.

Through its Aprons in-store kiosk andcooking schools, it also inspires customerswith cooking demos, guest appearances bycelebrity chefs and meal ideas of the week thatare merchandised with all the necessary ingre-dients. Publix also reaches out to the commu-nity in other ways, such as partnering withschools to motivate kids towards healthynutritious eating.

Publix customers are not necessarily look-ing for a separate segmented storefront, butrather to integrate options into the core super-market chain, explains Brous. “This is not asituation where, here’s our green store overhere for this niche.” The mission is to incorpo-rate these concepts throughout the Publixstore portfolio, to envelop sustainability intothe whole.

Publix sees itself as a friendly stalwartfoundation in the community that neighbor-hoods depend on when disaster strikes. Hitwith back-to-back hurricanes in 2004 andenduring losses of over $60 million, Publixstarted a project that would invest $100 mil-lion in back-up generators for hurricane-prone stores. The project ballooned, and thecompany now has over 700 stores with these500-kilowatt generators. According to Hewitt,many of them use bio-fuel, allowing forlonger runtime. This is an ideal example ofhow the three silos of sustainability cometogether: installing back up generatorsaddresses the conservation effort in a finan-cially sound way, while providing a critical ser-vice to the community.

PRIVATE/PUBLIC DILEMMA In many ways, ultimate philanthropic acts

emanate behind the scenes from anonymousdonors. The analogy is fitting when speakingabout Publix, sustainability and corporatesocial responsibility.

“We never overreach when we talk aboutour green efforts. We never want to be accusedof overstating anything. What you see is whatyou get,” says Hewitt. This very private, 80-year-old company is realizing the virtues ofbecoming more open. Consumers more andmore are making decisions on where to shopbased on a store’s sustainability and corporatesocial responsibility directive.

Sustainability isn’t cheap, but there’s areturn on investment — short-term sacrificefor the long-term goal. Perhaps this award willhelp spread the word and inspire other retail-ers to follow in Publix’ footsteps, while settingnew paths for the greater good.

Organic, products that contain 95 percent ormore organic ingredients. Then there’s thephrase “Made With Organic Ingredients,”which consumers are told means it has 70 per-cent to 95 percent organic ingredients.

For other terminology, All-Natural, Earth-Friendly, Vegetarian and Vegan, consumers aredirected to the company’s website to learnmore. The underplayed strategy is intentional.“These consumers know what they’re lookingfor,” says Hewitt. The approach informs with-out “being in your face.” The goal is to createan all-inclusive atmosphere that welcomes adiverse customer base.

While accommodating consumer demandfor year-round produce from around theworld, Publix does like to capitalize on pro-moting locally grown produce when it has thechance. Brous points out, however, that the

bon footprint than another one that a cus-tomer might consider to be not as desirablean option for their child.”

Similarly, organic is more of a lifestylechoice for some customers. It doesn’t neces-sarily point to sustainable,” says Brous. Publixis not in the business of claiming that eatingorganic is more beneficial than eating natural,conventional or locally grown. It’s about bal-ance. “Just because customers are livinghealthier lifestyles, doesn’t mean they’re notgoing to want to eat the pastries,” just prefer-ably in moderation, she says. Especially in adifficult economy, price may be an overridingfactor in consumer purchases. For others, itmight be whether purchasing the productgives back to a community cause.

Publix wants to provide helpful education-al labeling and merchandising without inun-dating customers with dizzying informationoverload. It’s committed to insure againstdeceptive or questionable certifications whileproviding consumers with plenty of productoptions. For example, depending on who youtalk to, one seafood item may be from a sus-tainable fishery, while someone else may saythat it’s not, according to Hewitt.

In Publix GreenWise Markets, there is atleast a 50 percent organic mix throughout theproduce department, and as high as 85 per-cent in some categories, says Brous. Subtle,color-coded signage along side products, dis-tinguish the variances. Even within the organ-ic category itself, Publix makes a point to notethe differences between USDA 100 PercentOrganic, products that contain all organicallyproduced ingredients, and USDA Certified

Perhaps this awardwill help spread theword and inspireother retailers to follow in Publix’sfootsteps, while setting new paths forthe greater good.


Mira Slott: Congratulations on a well-deserved award. I also understand you recentlyreached a major milestone and now have morethan 1,000 stores, so we’re excited to hear howyou’re enveloping sustainability measures intothis growing portfolio.

Publix has been on top of sustainability andcorporate social responsibility for many years,long before it became a fashionable trend.Could you share with us how this mantra cameabout and how you translate this philosophyfrom corporate throughout the company?

Maria Brous: You must have heard DaveDuncan, our vice president for facilities, talkbefore because he says that we were greenbefore it was cool to be green.

We started our recycling efforts in the early1970s, long before other retailers had reallytaken interest. That began with our recyclingthat you see in front of our stores where ourcustomers can return their plastic or paperbags back to our facilities. And that’s kind ofsymbolic for the Publix locations.

Back in the 70s, there weren’t too manycompanies that were thinking about long-term impacts of sustainability, but that’swhere it really began for us.

We thought long and hard about it. Wewanted to be a retailer of choice for cus-tomers, to provide conveniences and service.And that’s our mantra no matter what topicwe’re talking about: pleasing our customers,making that shopping experience more enjoy-able and understanding what’s important tocustomers. So, that began our commitment toserving our communities, and that’s grownthrough the years.

When you look at us today, fast-forwardingto 2009, we are employee-owned and operat-ed — that’s the first part that sets us apartfrom competition — and really is about howwe execute. We have skin in the game. This is apersonal investment and commitment that wemake to our customers and to our associates,and you’ll hear that throughout our company.That’s what I hope you will note — that werelate to ourselves as associates, because that’swhat we are.

We all have a part to play, and when itcomes specifically to sustainability, Michael isa part of that team. I’m part of that team, butit began with our CEO Ed Crenshaw, who hada commitment to looking at sustainabilitylong-term. It’s not only about our profit, butit’s about people on our planet and we cancombine the three. When you try to sell sus-tainability to some companies, some will do itfor the profit and that’s it in the end. But real-ly, what we are about is showing that sustain-ability is kind of a triangle. It comes back fullcircle, and we truly do it because it’s the rightthing to do.

We all have a seat at the table. In everydepartment, we have a cross-functional sus-tainability team at Publix where every majorbusiness unit is represented. We look at issuesfrom the bottom up, as opposed from the topdown. We really study the different depart-ments. We study the issues. We study theimpact on our customers and our associates.We study the long-term affects of differentchoices and then each person has an opportu-nity to represent their point of view.

So while Michael may be the subject-mat-

ter expert for the environmental component,we have to look at how that transcends andtranslates into the real world. What do thestores face? How do we help them? There hasto be buy-in from every level with your associ-ates. You can’t dictate sustainability from thetop down. You have to really understand theprocess and relate it to people.

Mira Slott: Could you provide some specificexamples? Do you have any vignettes that couldgive a flavor for how the process works, maybein your own experience?

Maria Brous: Michael will probably defera lot over this way, but we’ll talk about theareas in which we feel comfortable.

The “Green Routine” is probably the mostgrassroots effort. It may have seemed like itstarted on a small scale, but has unequivocallybeen one of the greatest success stories that wehave at Publix, and that truly is how to reducethe amount of electricity and energy that we’reusing at our store locations. And today, at1,002 stores, that becomes even more impor-tant than when we started this in the early2000s when our store count was not signifi-cantly less, but considerably less.

It really became about looking at our foot-print, and how we can start to reduce the ener-gy consumption at stores. It started with thesimple idea of turning off computers, turningoff lights, closing freezers and refrigeratordoors, making sure that we’re constantly beingenergy-efficient, and just reminding our asso-ciates to do the small things, not only at thestore, but they could also use those simplemeasures at home — to turn off the lights

In a recent meeting at the PRODUCE BUSINESS headquarters in Boca Raton, FL, Publix’s Maria Brous, director of media and community relations, and Michael Hewitt, manager of environmental services,

sat down with publisher Ken Whitacre and special projects editor Mira Slott.


when they left a room.We put stickers on light switches. We made

posters letting our associates know what thismeans, what does this equate to, how muchcan we reduce our electrical consumption,and really made a competition out of it forour folks. “Okay. What can your store do bet-ter over last year? Let’s start looking at energyefficiencies and let’s start making a difference.”And that’s how we got buy-in, involving theassociates at every level, and they each had arole to play.

Ken Whitacre: So, do people actually sitaround at a table and ask, “What can we do toreduce our energy consumption at each store?”or is it a part of the team process that you dis-seminate downward?

Maria Brous: Both. There are ideas. Wehave a “Change-It” program that Publix has inplace where associates are able to submit theirideas for a variety of things; for sustainabilityefforts, how to improve work processes, look-ing from all angles. Associates can submit awork-study. There are some cash incentives ifwe roll out the programs company-wide. Nowthere is a group in place and a table where wecan come and review ideas and initiatives.

Our facilities department is over 600 asso-ciates strong and they each are responsible forthe things that we spoke about, whether it’sthe lighting, whether it’s the refrigeration, orwhether it’s the computer — I mean, thewhole landscape, and really, what do we dofrom that point on?

So, we take ideas big and small. We talkabout them, how they affect the differentbusiness units, what role everybody plays,everything from the environmental to howthis is going to look externally. How do wecommunicate that? Our marketing folks havea seat at the table. How do we engage, notonly our associates, but also our customers,and really break it down?

Ken Whitacre: It sounds like Michael hasan easy job then, because everybody’s working

for him!Michael Hewitt: That’s one way to look at

it. Really, it’s a team effort. Maria mentionedthe corporate sustainability team, which is across-functional team representing every busi-ness unit, operating really at the decision-making level. But we have many other teamsthat are directly involved in sustainability aswell. We have “Green Routine” teams.

We have a team that does nothing but lookat ideas that come in and decide which mightwork, and then elevate those ideas and try toadvocate them, implement them and trackthem, so that we can measure progress. Andwhen things work, we see if we can roll thatout across the entire enterprise.

So, it’s not the effort of a half-dozen peo-ple on one team. It’s many teams and it reallyis every associate that gets involved in thePublix “Green Routine.”

And now, more recently, if you go to Pub-lix.com/sustainability, you can see how we’retrying to take that “Green Routine” that we’vespent years developing internally, and we’retrying to share that with our customers aswell, to help them be more sustainable intheir homes.

GREEN ROUTINEKen Whitacre: So initially, the “Green

Routine” was essentially an internal programthat has now branched out.

Michael Hewitt: That’s true. It started as aprogram for us to look internally to try to dobetter, which grew out of a culture at Publixthat has been there since Day 1. Publix hasalways been intolerant of waste, and advocatesdoing the right thing for the community andfor its customers and the environment. The“Green Routine” was just a natural progres-sion of that mantra.

So it really started before the word “sus-tainability” became fashionable. It wasn’tuntil more recent years that the term “sustain-ability” has been applied to what we do. But,we’ve been doing this kind of work for many,many years.

Maria Brous: When we talk about the“Green Routine,” it’s officially tagged, “GetInto the Green Routine” because we wanteveryone to take an active role in it. So, wetalk about “Get Into the Green Routine,” but itwas a reduction of more than 500,000 tons ofgreenhouse gases...

Michael Hewitt: Since 2001.Maria Brous: Right. That equates to being

able to power over 64,000 homes for a year.

Ken Whitacre: And it also equates to thou-sands and thousands of gallons of gas that canbe consumed.

Michael Hewitt: It does. I think it’s 903million kilowatt-hours that we’re approach-ing, and that equates to 500,000 tons ofgreenhouses gases that have been reduced,and that’s enough to power all those homesfor a whole year. We try to take the savingsthat we’re measuring every day and relatethem into terms that people can understand.

Mira Slott: Can you talk more specificallyabout sustainability measures in the company’sproduce department, and provide some exam-ples that our readers could relate to in the pro-duce industry?

Michael Hewitt: Well, we’re always tryingto offer more organic products whenever pos-sible. Also, if you look on our Web site, you’llsee information about how we try to makelocally grown purchase decisions whenever wecan. We try to buy as much as we can locally,keeping in mind that we have customers toservice and we work hard to provide themwith the produce that they want year-round.

We also have been trying to find a homefor as much of our organic waste material aspossible. When you run a food retail business,you end up with organic waste. You end upwith meat scraps from the meat department,stale bread from the bakery and damaged pro-duce in the produce department. We have formany years sent some of that material for ren-dering and have tried other outlets for thatorganic waste.


But more recently, we worked on finding away to compost, or otherwise convert thatmaterial into a soil amendment or a fertilizer-type product. We’re still continuing to workon that. It’s challenging. Even though I thinkPublix does a pretty good job at recycling andreducing waste, we’re still trying to find betterways to do it.

Mira Slott: Can you talk a little bit aboutthe logistics of handling recycling for such alarge operation? It seems like it could be a realchallenge with 1,002 stores.

Michael Hewitt: It is. In a company as bigas Publix with so many operations spread outacross the entire Southeast United States, it’s achallenge. We have training that we provide toall of our associates at the store level on howto collect this material and to collect as muchof it as possible. It then gets loaded on ourtrucks. After our trucks are unloaded at thestore, the recyclables go back on the trucksand they go to one of our centralized recyclingcenters. And that’s where it all gets collected,sorted if needed, bailed if it needs any bailing— we do some bailing at the stores — andfrom there, it gets sent off to the recyclers.

Maria Brous: Education is a big compo-nent that Michael spoke about. We do a lot toreally look at those processes. We need associ-ates to do their part. We need every associateto understand what can be recycled, what canbe bailed, how we keep bail integrity to makesure there’s not the possibility of contamina-tion, which in turn rejects that bail.

So, really getting them involved, whetherit’s with posters, because some are much morevisual learners, or with continuous training,from the very first day that they start workingat Publix, they understand our standards.

We have an orientation for every associatethat comes onboard, and part of what wespeak about in that orientation is our sustain-ability, what that means to the company andour vision.

Mira Slott: How do you work with yoursuppliers in terms of packaging and differenttypes of products that they need to switch overto in their businesses?

Maria Brous: I’ll let Michael answer a partof that, but to put it into perspective, we’re aSoutheast retailer, with 1,002 locations in fivestates: Florida, Georgia, Alabama, South Car-olina and Tennessee. We’re one of five chainsthat have a 1,000-store-plus landscape, but weare the only one out of the big five in thistight Southeast area.

We’re not spread out through the UnitedStates, which is what we see with our counter-parts. So, we’re really focused in this area, butwe’re a big powerhouse.

Our standards are very high. Our vendorcommunity understands we expect a large

commitment on their part. We expect them tobe sustainable. We expect them to continuelooking at their practices and their packaging.

Obviously, we have other retailers that alsoask the same thing and look at the sustainabil-ity part, but when we look at changing to awax alternative in produce packaging, forexample, how do we do that? We send out let-ters to our suppliers asking them to really lookat their practices.

We have a vendor scorecard that comes in.Based on everything from their operations tohow it affects our operations, we kind of lookat each vendor in totality and really ask themto take a look at that. Sustainability is on theirscorecard as well.

We have that working relationship and thebetter the suppliers do on their vendor score-card, the more information we’re going toshare with them about our business. So, theywant to understand it. There is definitely amotivator for them to understand our busi-ness more. They want access to figures and dif-ferent things, so we tell them, “The better youperform at all of these criteria, the more we’rewilling to sit at the table because we under-stand your commitment, and vice versa.”

Being a Florida-based company, many ofour relationships with our suppliers weremade on a handshake, from, say, Mr. George[Jenkins] and Duda Farms, and others. Youcan talk to a lot of these suppliers, especiallywith produce, and many of those deals wenton a handshake and a commitment that wewanted to do business with another Florida-based company. We ask them to look at mea-sures. What are the alternatives? What are thepotential savings? There may be an initialinvestment, but the long-term returns arewhat we’re looking at to be more sustainable.

Ken Whitacre: Would it be fair to say that

it is harder to do business as a supplier becauseof the scorecard and the sustainability efforts?

Maria Brous: No, because we do businesswith reputable companies that are looking tobe sustainable as well. They’ve heard the mes-sage, they’ve heard the appeal from the public,and I think it’s the way. It may be more hip tobe looking at those sustainable practices, butwe’ve been working on this for quite sometime. It’s not something that’s come as a bigsurprise to our suppliers. These are conversa-tions that we’ve had at the table for manyyears, and have been working on differentprograms and pilots.

Michael Hewitt: Just like Publix cannot besustainable without the participation of all146,000 associates, we’re also not an island.We cannot be sustainable without partneringwith our entire supply chain. We’ve donework with our suppliers, with our buyers, totry to find those alternative packaging optionsthat not only are more sustainable becausethey increase the recyclability of the card-board, but also do not degrade or harm thequality of the product that Publix and our cus-tomers demand.

Mira Slott: Are you trying to eliminateproduct packaging in some instances?

Michael Hewitt: We’re doing more of thatall the time, and another way that we’re work-ing on that is to partner with various associa-tions. Through participation in these associa-tions, we get connected not only with suppli-ers and manufacturers, but we also get con-nected with other retailers.

Maria Brous: Sustainability is not propri-etary. We believe that it is an industry move-ment that shares on best practices and we aremore powerful together. When we work withretailers that would typically be referred to ascompetitors, we get more accomplished forthe good of the environment.

Ken Whitacre: Have you formulated anofficial share group of retailers that you meetwith on sustainability?

Michael Hewitt: We meet with retailersthrough several associations on a regularbasis, again, not just food retailers, but otherretailers as well, because many of us share acommon interest. We all use energy, we allneed water to operate, and we all want toreduce packing and increase recycling, butthere’s another element that I want to makesure we don’t forget: the customer.

Through various efforts, we are trying topartner with our customers to help themmake more green, sustainable decisions intheir purchasing practices, to provide themwith tips on how to be more sustainable athome. A good example of that is our reusablebags, which we started selling quite a whileago. In fact, we have offered reusable bags for

many, many years. People are hopefully nowused to seeing the typical green bag or Publixreusable bag that’s being sold for 99 cents.But, for many, many years before that, wewere selling canvas bags.

Mira Slott: You were progressive here.Maria Brous: Right. People are talking

about using the bags as briefcases and giftbags, and catch-alls because not only are theymaking a statement, but they’re also beingmore user-friendly. But, we do different thingsto engage. Most recently, we engaged ourschool system in our market areas. We do apartnership with newspapers and educators.What we did this year to change up the NIE[Newspapers in Education, Troy, MI] pro-grams a little bit was to really involve kids. Weunderstand that the next generation is becom-ing so much more important in the sustain-ability of our earth and our planet, and morekids are becoming green.

We targeted and engaged all sixth gradersin our market area. We gave the teachers awhole NIE pullout on sustainability — abouteating healthy, eating green, living green, sav-ing energy and being more efficient. Itallowed teachers to develop a lesson plan.

We asked the sixth graders to design theirown reusable bag and we had a contest. Wewill reveal the winning bag for Earth Day this

year. Each sixth-grade teacher will receive thereusable bag that we’ve had made based onthis child’s rendering.

We really tried to get it from the grassrootsof working with the local schools, getting ourteachers involved, getting the parents, shop-pers, associates and suppliers involved,because they want to be part of that. So, itreally is affecting every part of our business.

Mira Slott: Do you bring the children tothe stores?

Maria Brous: We do. We do school tours.We talk about our practices and our efforts. Asa matter of fact, the Publix GreenWise Marketshave a unique program because they’re differ-ent, obviously, than any other store that wehave. So, they have a whole sustainabilitypacket that they go through. The scienceteachers usually love to go through and theywork on different activities, not only fromidentifying green products and green efforts,but we talk about some of the engineering —we talk about the roofing. We talk about thepaneling. We even talk about the restrooms,what’s recyclable, reusable. We do all differenttypes of things to engage the students.

Mira Slott: Jumping back a little bit topackaging, in the produce industry in particu-lar, food safety has become a big issue andthere’s a debate going on about packaging. Onone hand, there’s been a trend toward morepackaging for food safety. But then, packaging


“We are veryadamant that we willnever compromisefood safety or quali-ty, so we look for thatbalance where wecan ensure safetyand quality, and alsoprovide more recy-clable packaging, oreven sometimes,less packaging.”

— Michael Hewitt

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has an environmental side related to trying toget rid of more of it. How do you balance thoseissues of food safety and sustainability?

Michael Hewitt: We’re very adamant thatwe will never compromise food safety or qual-ity, so we look for that balance where we canensure safety and quality, and also providemore recyclable packaging, or even some-times, less packaging

Going back to the wax-alternative card-board again. We worked with the cardboardsupplier. We worked with the farmer produc-ing the produce, and we worked with the mid-dle company that would buy and sell thatproduce. We actually followed that producefrom the farm, through the distribution sys-tem, the warehouse, to the store. We did acomplete trial.

When that produce got to the store, wecould open up that box and look at that pro-duce and see exactly how well it did. That’sone example of our commitment to makingsure that when we do make these adjust-ments, these changes to be more sustainable,we’re not going to do anything to compro-mise our food safety or quality, or the integrityof the product.

Maria Brous: Michael and I definitelyagree that’s our philosophy. It doesn’t come toa balance for us. We will always put the quali-ty and the food safety as the top priority of

concern for us. Customers have grown toexpect that. They trust us. We work hard withthe Department of Agriculture. We work hardwith the FDA. We built all these partnershipsso that we’re close to the table, and we have aseat at the table when these issues come up.

We have a corporate quality assurancedepartment that is led by one of our directorswho has worked in the industry for othercompetitors as well as outside of the industry,and he brings a wealth of knowledge to thetable. We believe in the communication andthe establishment of relationships.

Much like what Michael said, we can’t dothis alone. We need to be informed. We needto be able to understand it from a differentperspective. But, we also bring to the tablewhat we know best, which is the food. This iswhat we do. This is our business, but there’s alot more that goes on before it even reachesour stores.

CUSTOMERS HAVE A VOICEMira Slott: How do you feel about these

issues of food miles? You had mentioned thisgoal of yours to try to bring in local produce.There’s been a little bit of controversy aboutfood miles and we’ve written a lot about it. Inthe U.K., for example, there was an issue whereTesco and Marks & Spencer were putting littleairplane stickers on packages to basically denote

that this was coming from Kenya or fromabroad, and that it would be more advanta-geous from a sustainability standpoint to pur-chase a local product. There have been all kindsof studies questioning the logic — examiningall the different issues in relation to carbonfootprints and whether it’s actually more sus-tainable to purchase that local product versusthe product from Kenya.

Maria Brous: Ironically, local is differentto every person we survey. Having said that, Iwill say that we are always attempting to givecustomers choice. One of the things we prideourselves on is that opportunity.

Specifically in our produce department,our produce is well labeled, so customersnever have to guess where their produce iscoming from. It is product of a specific loca-tion and it’s clearly denoted in the signage. Wealso have stickers that denote where the prod-uct is from, but signage is very clear.

But when we talk about availability ofproduct, there’s no seasonality in produceanymore. As a culture, Americans havebecome very accustomed to selection of prod-uct year-round, and because of that desire,local becomes very difficult to do.

Not everything grows every season locally,so there are times of the year where we have torotate, depending on if Florida might be toohot certain times of the year, and maybe it’stoo cold in Georgia. Customers still have thelargest voice with us.

Their purchasing power makes our deci-sions, so we continue to sell produce from dif-ferent areas year-round. Again, it’s about edu-cating them and allowing them to make thedecision. We don’t get involved in the seman-tics or the argument of what’s local. We letcustomers make that decision for themselves.

Whenever possible, we do like to work

“Whenever possi-ble, we do like towork locally. It’sadvantageous forus as a retailer aswell. We can bringthe freshest prod-uct to customers.

— Maria Brous

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locally. It’s advantageous for us as a retailer aswell. We can bring the freshest product, andthere’s a lot of citrus and different productsthat grow locally that we can bring to cus-tomers. Plant City strawberries are the bestexample that I have. It’s the closest to home tous being in Lakeland.

But, we have started a campaign for ourcustomers called, “At Season’s Peak.” Cus-tomers would ideally know what is the grow-ing season for that particular item and thatwould be at the sweetest part, but also, thattheir chances of being more local to themwould resonate.

This is the third year that we’ve worked onAt Seasons Peak. It’s the first year that we’veput much more media value and we’ve actual-ly done spots that customers will see on TV.The first one that we did this year was for thestrawberries. The next go-around, I believe inJune, we’re going to be doing the berries thatare all in season, the raspberries, blackberries,blueberries-type deal.

We worked on that really hard so that wecan tell customers, “You’ve asked, we’ve heard.Here At Season’s Peak.” It doesn’t mean thateverything is going to be defined as local to allcustomers — for some customers that areholistic and live the lifestyle, it may be a 20-mile or 30-mile radius that they’ll considerlocal. However, depending on where you live,

that may not be a realistic kind of expectation. You know, at times Miami is not going to

be able to give you that locally grown pro-duce. But, you look at it and customers havethat freedom of choice. And we work hard. Imean, whenever possible, we do look local toour growers and develop those relationships.

Mira Slott: Do you put more emphasis onlocal versus organic? Do you view organic asmore sustainable as a product than local, con-ventional or other choices?

Michael Hewitt: Maria gave a couple ofgreat examples about the information we putin front of customers to try to help themmake the best decision that they can, the deci-sion that is best for them. We’re listening toour customers. We’re providing them with theinformation that’s available. We also want tobe careful not to confuse the customer by pro-viding them with information that might behard to understand or contradictory.

Mira Slott: You’re right. It can be complex.Michael Hewitt: It can be very complex. It

can be so complex that if you look at the car-bon footprint of a product, one product thatmight be considered a healthy choice mighthave a larger carbon footprint than anotherone that a customer might consider to be notas desirable an option for their child. A bottle

of soda might have a smaller carbon footprintthan a gallon of milk, and we don’t want totry to put a message in front of the customerthat might say one is better than the other. Wejust want to be able to provide customers withuseful information they can use to make theirown buying decisions.

Maria Brous: Right, and organic is moreof a lifestyle choice for some customers. Itdoes not necessarily point to sustainable. Theymay be looking for perceived health benefits,and we’re not there to make those claims ofwhether there is or isn’t a health benefit to eat-ing organic over conventional, but, it is beingsaid. When we look at traditional Publixstores, we have GreenWise product available.GreenWise symbolizes a couple of differentthings to us: Publix GreenWise products areour private label of health, natural and organ-ic products.

GreenWise is also the section of health,natural and organic products; so not just ourprivate label, but just the category itself. Thestores are laid out a couple of different ways.In some stores, the product is integratedthroughout. When you travel up and downthe aisles, usually it will be in GreenWise sec-tions. Actually, organic product will stick outso that it is easy to identify, so customers whoare looking to make that organic purchase cansee it easily. In other stores that may not have


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a large organic traffic, it will be in certain sec-tions. Organic product is merchandised in anorganic Publix GreenWise area, so customersknow exactly where to go and can shop withinthat area.

The majority of what you’ll see is in linewith the other products, because organic hasbecome a lifestyle. It’s not a fad. More cus-tomers are looking to find that balance to beable to make those purchases easily, not tohave to go to a particular section, but to beable to travel through the store, and it really isabout balance.

Just because our customers are livinghealthier lifestyle, doesn’t mean they’re notgoing to want to eat the pastries. It just meansthat they’ll eat the pastries in moderation.

It goes back to the same thing about trans-fat. We talk about transfat being one of thethings that was really high on our customers’satisfaction. But when you do a transfat-freedonut, it doesn’t really have the same affect.We’re always mindful that we listen to cus-tomers, but then we also do the research andsay, “Here’s what you asked for because it mayhave sounded good. Here’s what the endresult will be like. Now, tell us, where do wego on this?” It’s not that it’s impossible to do,but if you’re going to eat a donut, you’re eat-ing it for the transfat that’s in the donut, notbecause it’s transfat-free.

Those are all the things that we keep incontext in really understanding that our job,as a grocer of choice, is to provide options forcustomers and allow them to make the bestdecisions for their families. For some cus-tomers, price point may be the decision factor,so private label is important. For others, itmight be a belief in a more holistic, organiclifestyle. For others, it may be the productmakes a contribution to the community, so letme go with this product because of the impactthat it has from a social economic perspective.

The other part that we can’t forget is thetough economy. Decisions change in a tougheconomy. What some customers may havechosen in a vibrant economy changes, andthey’re making different decisions today.There’s something for everyone. You have tobalance the options.

And, we don’t take anything and general-ize. We don’t make assumptions. Our privatelabel organic is less expensive traditionallythan an organic product would be. PublixGreenWise tends to be less expensive becausewe have the buying power of 1,002 stores.

So, there are trade-offs. I may be willing tobuy this in a particular brand, but I’m notgoing to compromise my produce. I may besolely committed to buying organic producebased on what I’ve read. But, that’s really upto each and every customer to make thatdetermination.

Mira Slott: I’m just following up on yourcomments about educating consumers andoffering choices, and not making too manyjudgments. I don’t know if we’re sidetracking,but on your Web site, Publix discusses certifica-tion and labeling concerns regarding seafood. Iwas wondering whether there were some paral-lels to how you were labeling in produce aswell. Could you discuss what’s happening inthat seafood category, and then apply it inbroader terms?

Michael Hewitt: Well, seafood is a greatexample where we are partnering with otherretailers and suppliers to try to do better inlabeling, and to improve those certificationprograms. Because as we discuss on our Website, many of those certification programs canbe confusing to the customer.

Maria Brous: And conflicting.Michael Hewitt: Depending on whom

you talk to, one item may be from a sustain-able fishery. Someone else may say that it’snot. So, we’re listening to our customers. Weknow that they’re concerned about this issue.We are working hard on this issue all the time,and you’ll find some very frank language on

our sustainable Web site about that. And, thatagain is part of the transparency of our sus-tainability program.

We’re trying to be as open and as transpar-ent as possible with our customers, with oursuppliers, and even with our competitors sothat together, we can all do better.

CORPORATE CULTUREKen Whitacre: Are there certain bench-

marks that you are trying to achieve over theyears? I would say this is all a gigantic work inprocess that probably will never end. But, doyou have certain benchmarks that you’ve estab-lished — let’s say for example a certain percent-age of local or a percentage of organic at cer-tain times, or a percentage of wax-alternativepackaging. Is that already 100 percent or doyou have numbers that you try to look at andsee where your goals are in the future?

Michael Hewitt:Well sustainability is not adestination; it’s a journey. So, it’s not some-thing that we’re going to be working on thisyear, and next year decide well, we’re done.We’re on to the next thing. Sustainability isreally a philosophy that’s been with Publix

Exposed produce refrigeration ducts efficiently re-circulate the heat, which is then used towarm the building’s water systems.


since the beginning, and it’s one that will con-tinue for as long as Publix continues.

We certainly have aspirations. We willoccasionally set goals for ourselves internallyto do better. An example of a goal that we’llmake public soon is our “Climate LeadersPartnership” with the EPA.

Mira Slott: I was reading about that.Michael Hewitt: Publix has joined EPA

climate leaders.Maria Brous: Yes, in June of last year.Michael Hewitt: We’ve committed to cal-

culating our carbon footprint, which as itturns out is not that easy to do. In a companythe size of Publix with retail operations spreadout across five states, manufacturing and dis-tribution operations as well as various othersupport facilities, it is a challenge to captureall of those greenhouse gases, but we aredoing it.

We’re going through the verificationprocess with EPA right now to certify thosecarbon footprint calculations, and later thisyear, we hope to announce a goal for reduc-tion of our greenhouse gas emissions.

Maria Brous: We’re always looking forways to improve and it becomes more difficultthe more stores we have. Mr. George [Jenkins]imagined success as 100 stores, and now that’s10 fold. How do we continue to improve ourcommunication when we’re so spread out,with so many diverse markets and customersthat we serve? That becomes a difficult taskand we spend a lot of time focused on thatcommunication. It starts at home. That’swhere it really begins, breaking it down to itssimplest parts and then working from there.

MMiirraa SSllootttt:: You had mentioned earlier inthe interview about cash incentives to inspireinnovation. I’m having this picture of a family-like culture at Publix, where everyone’s a partof the whole process.

Maria Brous: We followed through withthe concept at our conference last year, andpeople didn’t even know there were going tobe cash incentives. That was the great partabout it. We had already measured year overlast and the moves that had significantly savedas part of the ‘Get into the Green Routine.’Savings were huge and people were recog-nized for that at our conference. We rewardedthe district manager and that collective forachieving the greatest improvement year overlast, and they were really excited.

Mira Slott: You create a challenge. Michael Hewitt: It’s competitive.Maria Brous: But retailers are competitive

by nature. It’s in the blood.Michael Hewitt: We’re all part of the same

family, but each of us...

there was one family that had 18 family mem-bers that were working for the company. Wehave a CareWise club as part of our healthbenefits program. I joke that the whole reasonI joined the club was for the simple fact theywere giving away a onesie to a future Publixassociate and I was getting it! So he will beworking at Publix when he’s old enough topush a cart, that’s for sure.

Mira Slott: Will both of you describe yourcareer paths and what led you to your sustain-ability work?

Michael Hewitt: Actually, Dave Duncan,our vice president of facilities is the teamsponsor. Presently, we don’t have any one atPublix with sustainability in their title, but Ithink that we will in the future.

Maria Brous: That person is looking moreand more like Michael.

Ken Whitacre: We wanted to talk a littlebit about you, Michael, and learn about yourevolution in the company, how you started,where you came from, what you bring to thetable and your vision. We’ll also talk to Mariaabout how she fits into the whole sustainabilityteam at Publix.

Michael Hewitt: Very briefly, I am a nativeFloridian and very proud of that. I’m a secondgeneration, actually and a lifelong Publix cus-tomer. But I didn’t start working for Publixuntil about three years ago. I have a back-ground in environmental engineering andhave spent years working with various regula-tory agencies as a consultant and for other pri-vate companies. But when I got to Publix, Iwas very excited because what I found was asubstantial culture already in place. Peoplewere passionate about not just the basics ofrecycling, energy and water conservation, butreally interested in doing the right thing, insupporting the community.

Whenever we talk about sustainability,sometimes the message of that people ele-ment gets lost, but sustainability is reallyabout people, as well. It’s not just about envi-ronment, and Publix is a company that cares alot about its associates and its customers.

So, my role as manager of environmentalservices is first and foremost to make sure thatPublix is 100 percent compliant with the myri-ad of environmental regulations that apply toour daily operations. But then, working atPublix has given me the opportunity to getinvolved at the ground level with the buildingof this new sustainability program, which real-ly isn’t new anymore. Ed Crenshaw kickedthat off in August or September of 2007, Ithink, when our corporate sustainability teamfirst started meeting.

Maria Brous: That’s when we pulled in allthe different departments that were doing

Maria Brous: Like siblings, we don’t missthe opportunity...

Michael Hewitt: ...to compete with eachother.

Mira Slott: That’s great. Maria Brous: It is, and then being able to

submit their ideas. Take the recyclable floralbuckets, for example. It was an associate whodid the job day in and day out and was think-ing, “How could I improve this process? Howcould I make it more sustainable?” She sub-mitted the idea. She did the little work-studyin her store. Turned out, she made a great ideaa reality. We did a whole story on her in thePublix newsletter.

Michael Hewitt: We recycle several mil-lion of those buckets ever year now. It was justan item that we had missed, an opportunitythat we had missed. If we had not pushed sus-tainability all the way down to the associatelevel, then those kinds of ideas would not beable to bubble back up.

Maria Brous: Just to show you how we’relooking at every aspect of our business, therewas a time where we used to have photo labsin store. We don’t have any in-store photolabs anymore, but the reports that are auto-matically generated still had the page for thatservice. We had an associate that said, “Wedon’t need this wasteful blank page.” Thinkabout 1,000 stores printing that extra pageday in and day out. Part of it was how wecould have missed something so obvious, butthat just goes to the point that something sosmall can make a really big difference.

Mira Slott: And also that you set up anenvironment where someone felt comfortableand motivated to say something, too.

Ken Whitacre: Now, if we could, I wouldlike to talk a little bit about your background.Maria, you’re a new mother.

Maria Brous: I am. I almost hesitate tosay “new” because he’s already a 30-pound,walking little boy with a mind of his own.

Mira Slott: I imagine Publix is very family-friendly with childcare.

Maria Brous: We are, definitely. I think


individual efforts and brought everybody toone table.

Michael Hewitt: We brought a focus to allthese great things that Publix had been doingfor decades and we started to pull all of thatunder the umbrella of sustainability. Eversince, it’s been going 100 miles-per-hour.

Ken Whitacre: Maria, how do you fit intothe whole sustainability picture as the commu-nications director?

Maria Brous: I’m a Publix lifer. It’s my19th year with Publix, so I bring a differentperspective to the company. I’ve been veryprivileged to be able to work with most areasof our business, and that’s how I became themouth and the face of the company. Beingprivately owned and operated, we typicallyspeak under one voice, so that is my officialcapacity, along with community involve-ments. I take care of media relations andcommunity relations.

My part in the sustainability effort is tolook at the steps that we’re taking as a compa-ny, how that affects our customers and associ-ates, how we get the message out and how wereally balance what we’re doing.

Because we’re in the forefront of sustain-ability, and innovators in this area, we mustdetermine how much is too much to put outthere, and when is the right time. There aremany companies doing great things, but we’vealways been very conservative.

Our customer base challenges us now.Many are choosing where to shop based onwhat companies do for the greater good. So asa company that was always very conservativeand private about what we’ve done, we’ve hadto take an introspective look and really put itout there. Because we always want it to beright the first time we do it, we’re going toenter a lot of pilots. We’re going to study,study and study again before we make a com-mitment. This represents who we are. Ourcommitment is long-term. We’re not fly-by-night, so sometimes the rollout is not as fastas some would like it to be and sometimes,it’s not as slow as others, but finding that bal-ance is my expertise.

I play Devil’s advocate. When we have allthese great things, my job is to look at it fromopposing points of view and examine wherethat leaves us at the end of the day. I ask thehard questions, leave no stone unturned, andthen my job is to go out there and marketwhat we do so that there’s an awareness.

Ken Whitacre: Was there any specific areaof the sustainability efforts that you had a hardtime convincing upper management, “We reallyneed to do this?”

Maria Brous: That’s an interesting ques-tion, but the most simplistic and honest

answer is no, because it started from the top,with the buy-in from our CEO. Ed Crenshawwas very adamant and committed to thethings that we had done as a company. Thatdoesn’t mean that everybody agrees on all thesmall projects all of the time.

We spend a lot of time discussing theissues. Whether it’s organic recovery, gettinginto the “Green Routine,” looking at suppliersand the wax alternatives, or our bailing sys-tem. We will not always agree on everythingwe do. The table is big and we each have a dif-ferent piece of the pie that we look at.

What we always put at the forefront iswhether or not it’s right for our customer, ourassociates, the environment, and what thelong-term will be.

Mira Slott: How do you prioritize whatyou’re going to emphasize? As you so aptlypointed out, sustainability is broad in scope. Ithas these different silos; there’s the environ-ment, there’s the social aspect with people andthere’s also the business aspect.

Michael Hewitt: It is very challenging. Ifwe had unlimited resources, you might beamazed at all the things that we’d like to do.But because we have certain constraints wehave to deal with, that everyone has to dealwith, we try to prioritize what initiatives getworked on and which ones have to wait. It’sunfortunate that we can’t do everything we’dlike to do, but it’s a reality.

We have to approach our sustainabilityefforts in a fiscally responsible manner, aswell. If it costs too much money to do, it’s notsustainable. We have to maintain the business

while we’re working on our sustainabilityefforts, so we spend a lot of time looking atfinancially viable opportunities.

We have a team that meets every month todo just that, to look at all of the opportunitiesthat come from individual associates andthrough other various avenues that must getevaluated. Those that we have the resources topursue the project and those that have meritget elevated to project status. Then we assignpeople to work on those projects and we trackprogress so that if it works, we can implementit across the entire company.

THE GREENWISE LABMira Slott: Tell us more about how you see

GreenWise as an experimental lab.Michael Hewitt: A Publix supermarket we

build today is much more efficient than onewe built just five or six years ago — moreenergy and water efficient. We build those effi-ciencies into every new store that we constructand we’re constantly looking to do better.

Our GreenWise Markets are an opportuni-ty for us to try out some things that we mightnot have otherwise had the opportunity to do.Our vice president of facilities who’s responsi-ble for all of the design and construction workthat goes into building a new Publix likes tocall the GreenWise Markets a lab, a workinglab, because it provides us the opportunity totry out new ideas and if those ideas work at aPublix GreenWise, you’ll most likely see themimplemented across the entire company.

Maria Brous: Lab is a good word for ourGreenWise Markets because they are theminority of our business. We have 999 other

Solar power is an ongoing priority for Publix. The company currently has four differentlocations that benefit from solar energy.

traditional locations. Publix GreenWise is notthe core of who we are, but we also knew thatwe needed to find an answer for customerswho were looking for that healthier lifestyle,who wanted more selection of health, naturaland organic.

We have three Publix GreenWise Markets— one in Boca, one in Palm Beach Gardensand one in Tampa. More and more customerswant to see what we’ve done with those mar-kets incorporated into the traditional stores.They don’t necessarily want a separate store tobe able to be called their Publix GreenWiseMarket. They are much happier with a hybridstore where they still enjoy the everyday indul-gences that we spoke about with differentproduct selection. They just want to see someof the other product mix.

We’ve really had to do a good job ofexplaining what some of the features are atthe Publix GreenWise Market, because somecustomers don’t even realize it’s environmen-tally friendly. They may have thought the nat-ural lighting, for instance, was just cool.There’s an energy-efficient reason why we’redoing that. We’re using bamboo in the fix-tures, which provides a decorative touch tothe store, but there is an environmentallyfriendly part to that, too. It goes far beyondthe products just being organic, to some ofthe actual materials that were used in thestore. It’s why we use soy coating on the roof.What does that do for us? Why are we usingthe track lighting and how does that help?Why are we using the misters, and why are weusing the LED lighting?

These are all things that customers see inour stores. It’s hard sometimes for customersthat have been traditional shoppers to under-stand the changes. Why does it look darkerdown the aisle until I actually start to walkdown it and the lighting starts to get brighteras I progress?

Change is a balancing act. Once we set thepriorities, we retrofit the stores. In somestores, we need to wait for the remodel, whilein others we’re able to implement the changesas they open. It just depends on the magni-tude of the project.

Mira Slott: Can you give some examples ofitems or procedures that were experimental andbeing tested that you’re now unfolding into thePublix stores?

Michael Hewitt: At one time, heat recov-ery on the refrigeration systems was experi-mental. Now, I think it’s pretty routine. Evenwhen it comes to the ventilation hoods in theprepared foods areas, we’re working on newtechnology to avoid as much air conditioningor heat loss as possible through those hoods,and we’re making progress there. I think oneday that may result in different hoods being

put in all Publix’s prepared food areas.

Mira Slott: You had mentioned mistingand different refrigeration techniques in theproduce department. Can you elaborate furtheron that?

Maria Brous: The misters are done for acouple of different reasons, but the first andforemost is that we can keep produce freshwithout using an excess of water.

If you remember previously, there was hos-ing of the produce with all that water anddrainage. Misting is much more efficient.You’ll see them not only at our GreenWise

Markets, but also in a lot of our producedepartments storewide.

When you look at our lighting — our tracklighting in the produce department — somecustomers may think it’s aesthetic. Yes, it maylook better aesthetically to some customers,but the lighting efficiencies involved in thetrack lighting provide not only a savings, buta more energy efficient source of lighting.

The same thing goes for the LED lighting.When we look at our cases in the refrigeratordoors, why are we retrofitting? It’s becauseover the lifespan of the cases and the products,there’s definitely a return. There’s an argument


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fleet, we have over 684 tractors on the road atany given day, so that becomes difficult in ofitself to say, “Okay, we can convert.” Welooked at our generators in 2004 after we werehit with back-to-back hurricanes. Being Flori-da-based, we always knew we had a prettytight business, but when we looked at 2004losses of over $60 million because we couldn’trecuperate before we were hit with the nexthurricane, we decided that we were going totake matters into our own hands and do gen-erators. It started off as a project that wouldinvest $100 million in hurricane-prone storesand then turned into a plan to cover the entirestate where practical.

Michael Hewitt: We have over 700 storesnow with these 500-kilowatt generators. Manyof them are bio-fuel, which means they runoff of the mixture of diesel and natural gas,making them more efficient and allowing fora longer runtime. That again gets to the peoplecomponent of sustainability and providinghelp after the hurricane hits.

Maria Brous: People look at Publix.Michael Hewitt: ...to help them buy their

medicine, to get clean water to drink and foodto eat, and ice, which is obviously very impor-tant after a hurricane.

Maria Brous: Everything goes off the shelfat one point or another. It amazes me theamount of produce, meat and dairy that wesell during that pre-hurricane rush. “What arepeople doing with this?” you wonder, becauseinevitably, you’re going to lose power no mat-ter where you are at some given point.

I still lived in South Florida in 2004 andright after Hurricane Charlie, I remember lis-tening to the radio and one of the morningDJs said, “I knew it was serious when I went tomy local Publix and they were closed. They’reonly closed three days a year.” This was thefourth day. This to him was the major topic ofconversation because we are that kind of con-gregation point.

Mira Slott: You mean the fact that peopleare depending on you.

Maria Brous: Yes, and while that is a greathonor, it also comes with a heavy load and aheavy responsibility that so many peopledepend on us as part of that community.

We have many more eyes that look at usfrom all different directions. Not only do cus-tomers expect more from us, but even regula-tory agencies and different organizations alsoexpect us to be taking the lead. There’s thepride and everything else that we have, butthere is also a higher set of standards that wehold ourselves to not only because we believein that personal accountability.

Michael Hewitt: It’s expected, and it’samazing the effort that goes into preparing fora hurricane and to make sure that after theR

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against doing this casing because there is animmediate investment. Don’t get me wrong;sustainability isn’t cheap, but there’s a returnon investment. Short-term sacrifice for thelong-term goal is what we continue to explore.

We even take that methodology when welook at our fleet. We have one the most envi-ronmentally friendly fleets.

Michael Hewitt: We have over 170 hybridvehicles in our light-duty fleet; that includescars and sedans.

Maria Brous: We have our Priuses; wehave our Camrys, which are company cars thatwe issue to our associates. It was probablythree years ago when we started testing the lit-tle Priuses, and now they’ve become morepopular. Before, it used to be if you saw aPrius, you thought of Publix. We were on thecutting edge of doing things like that.

Michael Hewitt: When we look at the ben-efit of doing that, we’re not just looking at thefuel savings. It also helps reduce our carbonfootprint and it sends the right message.

Mira Slott: You’re showing that youractions are connecting with your words.

Maria Brous: We really do question statusquo. We look at everything and ask ourselves,“How could it be better?”

Michael Hewitt: That’s a challenge for acompany that’s almost 80 years old. Compa-nies that have been around as long as Publixmight be more set in their ways, but we areconstantly working on trying to do better andalways asking why do we do it this way?

Ken Whitacre: Are you converting yourdelivery trucks to bio-diesel or any other effi-cient means of gas?

Michael Hewitt: No, but we’re looking atthat. We have a fleet of the heavy-duty trucks.We’re constantly working on increasing thefuel efficiency of those vehicles through vari-ous means, either mechanical or improvingthe aerodynamics. We’re also working on andhave achieved efficiencies in our deliveryroutes so that we can reduce the number ofmiles traveled and increase the utilization rateof those trucks, so there’s progress being madethere as well.

FUTURE CHALLENGESMira Slott: What do you think the biggest

challenges are to your future goals with sus-tainability?

Maria Brous: One of the things that I’dlist is our size. Being able to find suppliers tomeet our ever-growing store count poses achallenge in most cases. Even though we’revery regional, it’s still a large store count to beregional. When you look at those 1002 stores,783 are Florida-based.

When you ask about our trucks and our

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hurricane, we’re up and running as soon aspossible. That’s not just keeping the supplyroutes running, but hurricane debris removaland everything else that goes into opening upafter a big storm.

Maria Brous: All the things that we havedone to become more energy-efficient havealso helped us in the recovery processes.They’re all linked together.

Ken Whitacre: Has the economy slowedany of this down? Has it delayed how fastyou’re able to create a new store?

Maria Brous: The time doesn’t change forus. One of the most important things, whichFortune magazine noted for us, too, is in atough economic time we are a debt-free com-pany. We are making acquisitions. We contin-ue to be strong. We are still purchasing.

Do consumer trends change? Absolutely.Will we delay different projects because ourfocus is on our retail stores and servicing cus-tomers? Do we re-prioritize? Yes. To say nowould be inaccurate. The economy plays a sig-nificant part, but the commitment level doesnot change.

Whatever the project is that we’re workingon, whatever becomes a priority today, wemay need to wait on trying to work with aspecific vendor or on a pilot that they weredoing because it just doesn’t make good busi-ness sense now. However, that doesn’t meanwe’re going to stop talks about how to findthe next great thing in composting, or how toget back to that organic food recovery plan.We keep an open door. We’re always seekinginformation that allows us to do differentthings being debt-free.

We can take more risk in a tough economy,even though we’ve always been very cautious.We are a very lean company. There’s not awhole lot of fluff and excess. Being stockhold-ers in our company, we’ve always tried toeliminate waste — that’s part of our missionstatement — from inside out. So while theeconomy has changed for America, how wedo business hasn’t.

Mira Slott: When the gas prices keptincreasing to over $4.00 a gallon, there was bigtalk about sustainability and then, there wasconcern that maybe when the prices of gasstarted dropping, all of a sudden this big pushin sustainability was going to be pushed underthe rug again.

Maria Brous: What kills me is that ifthere’s been flooding or droughts, we’ll getcalls asking, “How is this going to affect theprice of your produce today or tomorrow?”I’m trying to explain you won’t see the impacttoday or tomorrow. It’s a longer-term affect.Come talk to me in about three months.

Rising gas prices is a perfect example. Fuelis only one part of the equation, during theprolonged period of time when problemsaccumulate. When customers saw the gasprices go down again, they assumed that thecost of goods would go down, but there’s stillthe cost of the raw materials and everythingelse that’s factored in.

The other part to that is the grocery busi-ness is a penny-for-profit business. There isnot a whole lot of room for money to bemade. Consumers see prices increasing, andthey automatically expect the grocer is profit-ing on that, when the actuality is we have towork hard for every dollar that you’re spend-ing. We’re earning pennies on that dollar. Wehave to sell a lot of groceries in order to makeit work and our commitment has to be there.

Ken Whitacre: Do you see your stores asthree separate entities — being GreenWise,your newer Publix formats that you open, andyour older Publix stores — and treat them dif-ferently in any way?

Michael Hewitt: No, we really don’t. It’sall the same to us. We have a few different for-mats because we’re always trying to service thecustomer better. But when it comes to energyefficiency or efficiencies realized during theconstruction process, insulation, the myriadthings we do to make our retail operationsmore sustainable; that mantra is the same.

Ken Whitacre: Let me throw in solar

power, for example. Does solar power have adifferent priority for a GreenWise store as itdoes for the other stores?

Michael Hewitt: No, it’s not a differentpriority. It’s a priority for the company. Solarwill be increasing in its importance going for-ward. What we’re looking for with solar is tofigure out how best to integrate that technolo-gy into what we do, and our GreenWise Mar-kets provided us with an opportunity — goingback to the laboratory comment earlier — toinstall some solar on a retail operation, andlook at how that works, how efficient it is,what the cost is, what the payback is and whatthe benefits are. We’ve also installed solar atour corporate office, so it’s not just at retail.We have photovoltaic generating capacity.

Maria Brous: We have another traditionalPublix that has solar installed, too.

Michael Hewitt: That’s right. We have atotal of four solar installations, each one simi-lar, but there are differences with each. We’relooking for how to make that work. Maybe


“A company withheart is probably thebiggest form ofpraise that you cangive us. It is our skinin the game. Wehave the commit-ment and pride andownership all tiedinto one.”

— Maria Brous


one day you’ll see solar at every Publix.

Ken Whitacre: So, that continues to be awork in progress. It’s very much a laboratory-type of an environment.

Maria Brous: There are more hands over-all at all times on the GreenWise Markets justbecause it is such a laboratory. It gives us acontrolled area to work with, so it does helpus to try things, but we’re also very realistic.Our GreenWise stores are 39,000 square feet.A traditional Publix typically would range upto 61,000 square feet, so there are differentthings that we need to try in traditional stores,as opposed to a smaller-scale store.

When we acquired some of the Albertson’slocations late last year, some of them are aslarge as 74,000 square feet. It’s a whole differ-ent prototype. We’re very careful to under-stand the impact.

Some stores are as small as 27,000 squarefeet. Urban stores tend to be a whole otherissue. We have stores with above-ground andunderground parking and condominiums ontop. There’s just an array of different storesthat we go into. Our goal is to be able to gointo any format or size store and maximize itspotential. The ground up is definitely easierfor us because we have a lot more say.

Our GreenWise Market in Palm Beach Gar-dens is LEED-certified and that became thebuzz. People ask us all the time, “Will all yourstores be LEED-certified?” Well, no, that’sunrealistic to look at a grocer with a 1,000-store footprint and ask us that, but we wantedto try things. We wanted to understand. We

hadn’t built a LEED-certified store before, sowe needed to try to do that. What’s the eco-nomic impact? What’s the long-term affect ofthat? What’s the goal? We’re not going to do itsimply to say it’s LEED-certified. How doesthat impact the customer? How does thatimpact us as a company? Are we being respon-sible stewards?

At the end of the day, we have stockholderswe answer to, which is each one of us, inbeing able to be a financially viable company.But a company with a heart is probably thebiggest form of praise that you can give us. Itis our skin in the game. We have the commit-men, pride and ownership all tied into one.

INDUSTRY RELATIONSKen Whitacre: Does Publix participate in

Fair Trade with bananas or coffee or anythinglike that?

Maria Brous: We have stayed out of FairTrade. We believe that those are issues thatneed to be handled outside of our arena. Weare not involved. We encourage the parties tocome to the table and have those discussionsand our job, at the end of the day, is to be aresponsible supplier to our customers, be anoutlet. We do not engage in this regard. We arevery respectful.

We don’t like anybody coming into ourhouse telling us how to do business. We don’tgo into other people’s and do that, but we doestablish the relationships for the long-term.It’s not uncommon for you to go to our sup-pliers that we have worked with for 30, 40,some 50 years, and still remember Mr. George.

Ken Whitacre: There are many items thathave to have certain certifications, such asGlobalGAP and ChileGAP, which actually havea sustainability or a corporate social responsi-bility element to them. I wanted to see whatyour philosophy is on that, if you look at that,if you are open to that, or if that’s somethingbeyond the realm of what you really want toget involved in at this point?

Michael Hewitt: It is beyond what we aredirectly involved in right now. We might getinto that arena somewhere down the road. AsMaria said, we have very specific philosophiesabout Fair Trade and I don’t see that changing.

Mira Slott: Beyond Fair Trade, there hasbeen this push for development of sustainabilitymetrics for specialty crops and another initiativeto create national standards for sustainability.There’s a debate about whether it’s desirable —or even possible — to have national standardsfor sustainability, even in terms of definingwhat sustainability is. Are you participating inthose discussions?

Michael Hewitt: We’re not participating inthose discussions on a national scale. My phi-

losophy of sustainability is that it is unique toevery company. So, there is no one-size-fits-allfor sustainability. What makes less sense tome is to try to come up with some nationalstandard of sustainability and then holdeveryone to it.

Sustainability really has a lot to do withcompany philosophy, who’s running the com-pany, and how engaged all of the employeesare in that company. It’s very company-specificand it’s also very business-specific.

Sustainability would be implementedmuch differently for Publix than it would befor a shoe store or an electronics store, simplybecause our operations are very different. Ilike to think that our sustainability strategy isunique to Publix, not to say that it’s betterthan anyone else’s, but it works well for us.

Mira Slott: Well, it seems to be all encom-passing. You’re covering every aspect of sustain-ability and corporate social responsibility. It’snot where you have some narrow environmen-tal initiative, which is what someone might ini-tially think with the attention on your recy-clable strategies. After talking to you here forthis amount of time, one can get a sense of howsustainability envelops your company in every-thing you do.

Michael Hewitt: You have to live it...youreally do. For some people, they were livingmore sustainable at home and that has per-meated the workplace. In other cases, we findassociates are learning more about sustain-ability at work and they’re taking that homewith them. So, it works both ways.

And now, through our Web site andthrough other opportunities, we’re helpingour customers apply sustainability at home,and we’re trying to provide our customerswith buying options in our stores that wouldhelp them live a greener lifestyle at home.

Mira Slott: What advice could you give toproduce industry companies that want to workwith you and improve sustainability goals with-in their own companies?

Michael Hewitt: Well, I’d tell them to beengaged with Publix; we’re always talking toour various suppliers looking for opportuni-ties. Another avenue might be through varioustrade associations where we can band togetherand make big changes, rather than just asmaller, local change, which might be morePublix-specific.

I would encourage produce growers tothink about, if not specifically try to calculate,their carbon footprint. Look at where theirgreenhouse gas emissions are coming from. Isit through fuel use or fertilizer use? Look forways to reduce that impact and then look forways to put that in front of customers. Findways to present that message via the Internet

or maybe through partnering with a retailer tosay, “This produce was grown at a farm thatwas more sustainable and here’s why.”

Also, I would encourage people to be verycareful about measuring. When you look atimpacts, for instance, carbon footprints, youneed to be very careful to document, and verycareful in how you collect that information soyou can be transparent when you talk about itwith other people, and when people come toyou with questions, as they inevitably do.

Mira Slott: No math manipulation.Maria Brous: We don’t believe in funny

math. No way.Michael Hewitt: We never overreach when

we talk about our green efforts. If anything,we’re conservative when we talk about itbecause we never want to be accused of over-stating anything or perhaps even brainwash-ing what it is that we’re doing.

Maria Brous: What you see is what youget. That’s what it comes down to. We are avery transparent company in every aspect.That’s the only way we know how to be. Butit’s worked for 79 years, so we’re doing some-thing right.

Ken Whitacre: Does Publix have any sys-tems where you actually highlight a certainvendor each year for going above and beyond?

Maria Brous: We are very protective of oursupplier relationships. We don’t engage inpublicizing. We don’t do a lot of press releas-es, unless it’s a mutual agreed-upon kind ofdeal. But, we are respectful of the relationship.We expect a lot, and we give a lot in return.

I think overwhelmingly, what you’ll hearfrom our supplier community is we’re a toughcompany, but when you’re in, you’re in, andit’s good to be that way. We like to set that barhigh because at the end of the day, we’re thereto serve our customers and to exceed theirexpectations. We do that every day, and weexpect no different from our suppliers.

We come in with a service mentality. Weare there to serve and we ask that our suppli-ers come to the table with the same mentality,and understand that our customers alwayscome first. Always.

Mira Slott: It seems like there’s this senseof integrity in what you do. I mean, it’s a busi-ness obviously, but I think you said somethingnice about having a heart.

Michael Hewitt: I think no one takes thatfor granted at Publix, but for the peoplewho’ve been there for years and years andyears, it becomes just everyday, natural — it’sautomatic. For those of us who came in morerecently, like I did three years ago, I still some-times just take pause and think about what Ihear and see, and think about what a neat

company this is and how unique it is.

MMiirraa SSllootttt:: Well, it’s interesting because Ihear that same family nature at PRODUCE BUSI-NESS, and it makes you feel dedicated to wantto do your best.

Michael Hewitt: You touched on some-thing really important, which we didn’t talkabout earlier, and that is when Publix is look-ing for new talent, when we’re looking forthat next generation — the generation that’sgoing to run the company after we’re gone —those are the people that we’re looking for,the people who feel that connection. Thank-fully, there are also people out there who arelooking for that connection.

The message of sustainability is yet anoth-er way for us to reach out to that talent pooland attract...

Mira Slott: People want to be a part ofsomething, to feel like their input counts.

Michael Hewitt: Right. I mean, surveyshave shown that people — young peopleespecially — are actually coming out of col-lege willing to take a job for less money if it’swith a company that they believe in, that theyadmire, that they believe is doing the rightthing, which is great.

Maria Brous: I think interestinglyenough, people always ask — especially dur-ing the holidays and summer — “Are you hir-ing for seasonal?” and our answer is no. We’relooking to make careers at Publix. It’s not justa job. It’s a career. Much like it’s a lifestyle, itreally is a sense of “This is who we are.”

Mira Slott: It must be very hard to be in anindustry with high turnover, especially whenyou’re going to all the effort of training people.

Maria Brous: I think within the first 30days, we spend, on average, about $6,000training our associates. Most of our them,within the first 90 days, know it’s a place forthem, that it’s something that they can do. So,we figure the majority of our turnover hap-pens within the first 90 days. But, when youtalk to them, it’s not uncommon to see the lif-ers come out. We have a district manager whois receiving his 55th Year Service Award com-ing up in April, and that’s not uncommon.The average — our median for store managerof years of service — is 25.4 years.

Ken Whitacre: That’s incredible. So do youfind that the people who want to work atGreenWise are more loyal, more dedicated?

Maria Brous: I don’t think so, because it’ssuch a small niche for us. When people cometo us, there is expertise at times. Their exper-tise may be different because we may havemore of the lifestyle. It’s different.

With only three stores, that was a big issueto come around the table and say the organic

lifestyle is different than a clean-cut, tradition-al associate should be. But it was importantfor us to step outside of that norm because wewere looking for the expertise in the area, andwe can continue to train associates there.

But, once you’re on board, once you’vedrunk the water, we expect you to be a part ofthis family and kind of sharing, and you don’tlast if you don’t. It’s one of those things thatpeople definitely know.

Michael Hewitt: Right. They’ll start whenthey’re a teenager stocking shelves, and theymay go to college, but they come back. It’s notunusual to meet a manager or director, oreven a vice president, who was once stockingshelves.

Mira Slott: It’s like your experience whenyou’ve seen all different aspects of the operation— it probably helps you and adds to yourunderstanding in how to answer a question.

Maria Brous: It does. I think I’m very for-tunate that way. But I think we each have ourstory to share and we’re all different. I mean,that’s the greatest thing and the greatest giftthat we have; it’s a diversity of thought. Wereally are a company that welcomes that, anddiversity is not black or white, male or female,or an ethnic group.

For us, it really is about diversity ofthought and coming to the table with a differ-ent train of reference, and really, what youbring to the table. And, Mr. George always hada saying that “Publix will be a little bit of abetter place or not quite as good because ofyou.” And that, still today, years later, res-onates. It’s in all our break rooms and it’ssomething that we very much live by. What isyour contribution in making this a little bitbetter place or not quite as good?

Mira Slott: Well, thank you so much fordevoting all this time. It’s just been fascinating.

[Editor’s Note: Special thanks to OscarKatov at OK Communications Inc., in Hoover,AL, for assisting PRODUCE BUSINESS in creatingthe Retail Sustainability Award Program.] pb


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