Waitrose, Morrisons and Co-op turn down lights to tackle energy costs

Waitrose, Morrisons and Co-op have been dimming lights across stores in a bid to cut rising energy costs.

According to reporting by the Daily Mail, the UK’s supermarkets alone use 3% of all electricity.

Looking to tackle this as costs soar, upmarket retailer Waitrose is updating its fridges to make them more efficient by 40% and is considering blinds across its fridges to keep cold air in at night, a measure already implemented by Morrisons.

Aldi is also upgrading its fridges with see-through doors to maintain low temperatures at a smaller energy cost.

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In 2021, the discount retailer installed fridge doors as standard in its new and newly refirbished stores which reduced each site’s energy consumption by around 20%.

At Big 4 grocer Sainsbury’s, LED lighting is being used in its stores during the day, with smart sensors adjusting the brightness as and when natural lighting is present.

By using LED lighting, electricity use can be slashed by 80%.

Nisa retailers have been investing in efficient and changing business practices to update their convenience stores by also adding LED lighting and retrofitting doors on chillers.

As frozen food retailer Iceland had warned that its energy bill could double, it began stocking more room temperature products, its managing director Richard Walker told Bloomberg in January.

It is investing in more energy efficient measures including more modern fridges, putting doors on warehouse fridges and adding solar panels to stores and warehouses.

Last week, the frozen food retailer also entered a 10-year partnership with Octopus Energy’s generation arm to be supplied with green power.

The power, which will come from the Octopus-managed Breach solar farm in Cambridgeshire, will provide c.64 Gigawatt hours (GWh) of renewable energy every year to power 150 sites, which will cover 14% of Iceland’s electricity needs for its UK stores.