WEST DES MOINES, IOWA (September 22, 2022) — Hy-Vee, Inc. is pleased to announce it has earned a GreenChill recognition from the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for its work to reduce refrigerant emissions and decrease its environmental impact.

Hy-Vee was honored with the GreenChill recognition for Superior Goal Achievement, awarded to GreenChill partners that achieve their annual GreenChill refrigerant-emissions reduction goal. EPA’s GreenChill Program is a voluntary partnership with food retailers, system manufacturers, and chemical producers to reduce refrigerant-emissions and decrease their impact on the ozone layer and climate change. GreenChill provides supermarkets and other industry stakeholders with information and assistance to transition to environmentally-friendlier refrigerants, reduce the amount of refrigerant they use, eliminate refrigerant leaks, implement environmental best-practices, and adopt green-refrigeration technologies.

According to the EPA, GreenChill partner stores have much lower leak-rates than average stores in the US. If every supermarket reduced its leak levels to the GreenChill average, the supermarket industry could annually save more than $251 million in refrigerant-replacement costs and reduce emissions by about 31 million metric tons carbon-dioxide equivalent and 84 ozone-depletion potential metric tons, the EPA says.

Hy-Vee joined EPA’s GreenChill program in 2010 and focuses its refrigerant management plan on leak avoidance and using lower global warming potential (GWP) refrigerants.

“The GreenChill program has been a been an extremely valuable public/private partnership for Hy-Vee, and the entire grocery industry,” said Hy-Vee Chairman and CEO Randy Edeker. “This program has been instrumental in helping retailers like Hy-Vee benchmark their progress in reducing greenhouse gas emissions and achieving our sustainability goals.”      

Hy-Vee continues to retrofit existing stores with lower GWP refrigerants, install lower GWP refrigerants in new stores, and use leak-detectors throughout all stores across its eight-state region in an effort to reduce its emissions.

Hy-Vee Inc is an employee-owned corporation operating more than 285 retail stores across eight Midwestern states with sales of more than $12 billion annually. The supermarket chain is synonymous with quality, variety, convenience, healthy lifestyles, culinary expertise, and superior customer service. Hy-Vee ranks in the Top 5 Most Trusted Brands and has been named one of America’s Top 3 favorite grocery stores. The company’s more than 80,000 employees provide “A Helpful Smile in Every Aisle” to customers every day. For additional information, visit www.hy-vee.com.

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