Rochester, NY, 2015-6-25 — /EPR Retail News/ — On June 22, 2015, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recognized Wegmans Food Markets as an outstanding Safer Choice Retailer. The award, presented in the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center in Washington, DC, was accepted by Wegmans Category Merchant for cleaning products, Dave Tantillo, and Wegmans Sustainability Manager, Jason Wadsworth.
EPA developed the Partner of the Year Awards to recognize Safer Choice stakeholders who have furthered the safer chemistry and safer product goals of the Safer Choice Program. In 2014, Wegmans introduced a line of cleaning products made with safer ingredients.
To qualify for the Safer Choice (formerly “Design for the Environment”) label, a product must meet EPA’s Safer Choice Standard, which includes stringent human and environmental health criteria. When the Safer Choice label appears on a product, it means the EPA has evaluated each ingredient in the product for potential human health and environmental effects. Safer Choice works closely with companies to help them understand the chemistry of their products and to select safer alternatives to chemicals that pose potential health or environmental concerns.
“I’ve been managing the cleaning product categories for several years. If someone asked me, when I first started, if we could successfully launch a line of products that was safer for people and the environment, effective, and priced attractively, I would have told you it would be impossible,” says Tantillo. “But Safer Choice standards gave us direction. Combining that with our committed supplier, we had a formula for success. And our customers are the real winners.”
For more information about the Safer Choice Program, visit: http://www.epa.gov/saferchoice
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Wegmans Food Markets, Inc. is an 86-store supermarket chain with stores in New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Virginia, Maryland, and Massachusetts. The family-owned company, founded in 1916, is recognized as an industry leader and innovator. Wegmans has been named one of the ‘100 Best Companies to Work For’ by FORTUNE magazine for eighteen consecutive years. In 2015, Wegmans ranked #7 on the list. The company also ranked #1 for Corporate Reputation, among the 100 ‘most-visible companies’ nationwide in the 2014 Harris Poll Reputation Quotient ® study.
Contact Information: Jeanne Colleluori, media relations coordinator, 585-720-5750