Morrisons has officially opened its brand new lower environmental impact store which will use 43% less carbon than a standard store.
With an aim to becoming a more sustainable business, the Big 4 grocer‘s newest store located in Little Clacton will include 366 loose products, making the store almost zero waste and reducing the amount of plastic used.
This will continue through a back-of-house system where harder items from customers’ waste will be recycled, limiting its environmental footprint.
The loose products will be available at no extra cost to a shopper’s weekly food spend with a significant number locally sourced and offering a healthier, more nutritious range.
Products like pasta, coffee, home baking and refillable household cleaning products will be some of the loose items found in store, in addition to 76 types of fruit and vegetables, 57 bread and buns and 14 pet foods.
Shoppers can also purchase a range of 110 meat, fish and deli products in refillable containers to create a plastic-free shopping experience.
To prevent food waste, Too Good To Go ‘Magic Bags’ will be on offer which will include £10 worth of fruit, veg, deli and bakery products for £3.09.
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The retailer will be implementing its Morrisons Nation’s Local Foodmakers programme to the Little Clacton store, which searches for locally known and loved food and drink produced by local famers, growers and food makers.
Over 250 items will be supplied from less than 35 miles away and the store will be the first to trial Morrisons carbon neutral eggs.
“This store is a significant step forward on our sustainability journey. It brings together all of the environmental and social initiatives we have created that can be rolled out into other stores across the country,” Morrisons CEO David Potts said.
“It will start to inform the design of many more similar stores to come.”
New initiatives including quadrupling locally sourced products, increasing biodiversity schemes and community hours have the potential to be implemented in all Morrisons stores on a larger scale.
During the build of the more environmentally friendly store, 99% of demolition materials were recycled.
With an aim to increase renewable energy, the store will generate its power through solar panels, air source heat pumps using waste eat from fridges to head the store and its hot water and only using electricity, rather than gas.
Other features of the store include Next Generation Fridges which use CO2 from agricultural waste, ‘EcoBlades’ trapping cold air inside to reduce energy use and 20 EV charging stations for customers to use.
