Rays Food Place EcoUnit and Catalina Marketing Team Up to Bring New Reusable Bag Incentives to Rays Grocery Stores
Ray’s Food Place, EcoUnit and Catalina Marketing Team Up to Bring New Reusable Bag Incentives to Ray’s Grocery Stores
BROOKINGS, Oregon (March 3, 2009) -- Ray's Food Place, in partnership with EcoUnit and Catalina Marketing, today introduced their environmental rewards program to promote the use of reusable bags at Ray's Food Place stores. “This new innovative program rewards shoppers with one EcoUnit credit for each reusable bag used at participating stores,” explained Robin Kovach, Director of Sustainability and Environmental Impact for C&K Market, Inc. “Shoppers can collect EcoUnit credits and redeem them for their choice of local environmental causes, including tree planting and river conservation.”
Ray's Food Place selected the EcoUnit environmental rewards program in order to incent its customers to benefit local environmental causes. Each time a shopper participates they help the environment in two important ways - by foregoing the use of plastic and paper bags and by earning EcoUnit credits which are redeemed to support the local environment. Ray's Food Place utilizes Catalina Marketing's proprietary technology to print a unique code for each shopper with a reusable bag. The shopper then enters the code at gorays.com to register their credits. Each participating shopper receives an account on the EcoUnit system where they can manage their credits and redeem them for their choice of environmental rewards.
Adoption of the EcoUnit environmental rewards program is part of Ray’s Food Place’s overall sustainability strategy that seeks to reduce energy consumption and waste. According to the EPA, Americans use over 100 billion disposable plastic and paper bags every year, many of which end up contaminating our soil and waterways. Cities and states around the nation are looking at ways to ban or place fees on use of disposable bags. Greg Sandeno, Vice President and COO of CK Market, Ray’s Food Place’s parent company says, “we are excited to offer this innovative program to our customers. We all care about the local environment, and it’s a priority for C&K Market and Ray’s Food Place to reward our customers when they do the right thing by using their reusable bags.” The program will benefit important local environmental causes in central and southern Oregon. Ray’s Food Place customers can sign up for the program by visiting gorays.com.
About C&K Market, Inc.
C&K Market, Inc. is a family-owned company based in Brookings, Oregon. The company operates Ray’s Food Place full service grocery stores, Shop Smart and Price Less Foods stores offering everyday low pricing in a warehouse format. In 1956, Raymond L. Nidiffer, "Ray,” purchased a one-half interest in the C&K Market located in Brookings, buying out Kimberly and joining Collins in the C&K partnership. In 1969, Collins decided to retire and sold his interest to Ray. As the sole owner of the corporation, Ray began growing the company. Now under the leadership of Ray’s son, Doug Nidiffer, C&K operates 59 stores in Oregon and California. More information can be found at www.ckmarket.com.
About EcoUnit
EcoUnit is the rewards program for the environment, connecting consumers with environmentally responsible products and services. EcoUnit's mission is to mobilize these connections to accelerate the introduction of more sustainable products and business practices. EcoUnit works with its corporate partners to develop programs that motivate customers to take discrete eco-friendly actions that both help the environment and the bottom line. For more information visit www.ecounit.com.
About Catalina Marketing Corporation
Based in St. Petersburg, Fla., Catalina Marketing Corporation (www.catalinamarketing.com) was founded over 25 years ago based on the premise that targeting communications based on actual purchase behavior would generate more effective consumer response. Today, Catalina Marketing combines unparalleled insight into consumer behavior with dynamic consumer access. This combination of insight and access provides marketers with the ability to execute behavior-based marketing programs, ensuring that the right consumer receives the right message at exactly the right time. Catalina Marketing offers an array of behavior-based promotional messaging, advertising, loyalty programs and direct-to-patient information. Personally identifiable data that may be collected from the company's targeted marketing programs, as well as its research programs, are never sold or provided to any outside party without the express permission of the consumer.
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