The Subway restaurant chain, which has made a commitment to make its restaurants and operations more environmentally responsible, recently honored some of its vendors for their contributions in helping the brand reach its sustainability goals.
Honorees include:
- Schreiber Foods, Green Bay, Wis., which provides cheese and dairy products to Subway restaurants in 36 countries, was recognized as the brand's Vendor of the Year. Along with its global capabilities, responsiveness to the Subway franchisees and commitment to the brand, Schreiber Foods was also cited as a great business partner in the brand's sustainability efforts by reducing the innerleaf paper between cheese slices, saving about 450,000 pounds of paper in the process.
- CHEMCO Corp., which supplies Green Seal certified hand soap to all Subway stores in North America. The soap is readily biodegradable, non-toxic, meets all federal guidelines for limiting carcinogenic ingredients and is free of any volatile organic compounds (VOCs). In addition, everything about it is recyclable — from the lotion container to the case it is shipped in.
- SSDC Sustainable Solutions, which provides California Air Resources Board certified glass cleaner and degreaser to the brand worldwide. Previously shipped "ready-to-use" in large containers which contained water as an ingredient, the products are now shipped as concentrated strips, which removes bulk and weight from the shipping process. That packaging reduction has resulted in a savings of about 180,000 pounds of plastic and 155,000 pounds of corrugate.
These awards were recently presented at the annual Subway convention in Washington, D.C.
Tina Fitzgerald, Director of Produce and Social Accountability for the chain's Independent Purchasing Cooperative (IPC), said, "We have made a commitment to be more environmentally responsible in everything we do. The Subway team appreciates the work and commitment on the part of our vendor partners to help make this happen."
