Sustainability Initiatives

Buy-Low Foods takes a holistic approach to sustainability. We build our stores for optimal use of refrigeration and lighting systems that are best for the environment.

In many of our stores – and in all of our new builds over the past several years – we have incorporated systems for recovering the heat generated by our refrigeration to use in heating water for use within the store, and where applicable – residential components of the building.

We have also developed a system for capturing the “cold spill” from refrigerated display cases and recycling it for cooling the store in warmer months.

Wherever possible, Buy-Low Foods diverts organic compost from its distribution centers to a facility where it is transformed into animal feed or compost to grow crops.

In July 2015, we commenced diverting organic waste from our retail stores in Metro Vancouver to the same facility and in the latter half of the year, diverted a further 263 metric tonnes from landfills.

In our stores, close/outdated food products are removed from the store on a regular basis and, wherever possible and appropriate, donated to non- profit organizations that distribute the product to the less fortunate.

When we cannot do that, we do our best to ensure that these products end up either with a local farmer for animal feed or, where this is not possible, arrange disposal through an organic waste processor.

In addition, we divert cardboard, paper and plastic waste to recycling centers.

As part of our commitment to reducing, re-using and recycling, we recycled over 1,000 metric tonnes of cardboard, plastics, organics, and loose paper in a given year.