“Attention Ray’s Food Place shoppers!”
Central Oregonian, March 7, 2009. By Jason Chaney.
All five Ray’s grocery stores in Central Oregon — including the Prineville store — are offering their customers a double-duty way to help the environment with each shopping trip. The grocery store chain has joined forces with EcoUnit, a company formed in 2007, dedicated to carrying out actions with corporate sponsors to help the environment. “We identify discreet actions that consumers can take that are eco-friendly” said EcoUnit founder Kent Ragen. “With Ray’s, the discreet action is using reusable bags.” While Ray’s has made the canvas reusable bags available to customers in the past, the program with Eco-Unit takes it a step further.
“Every time a shopper uses a reusable bag, there is a double benefit to the environment,” Ragen explained. “One, they don’t use more plastic or paper bags and two, they help another part of the environment.” In this particular program, each time a shopper uses a reusable bag, they receive an EcoUnit credit. After accumulating enough credits —about 50 — they can redeem those credits to purchase one of two environmentally conscious actions.
“The two local environmental causes we established is planting a tree in the Deschutes River Basin and contributing to conservation of the lower John Day River,” Ragen said.
According to Prineville Ray’s manager Dan Stagnoli, the Eco-Unit credits are tracked on the Eco-Unit Web site. “Cashiers use a special number and print a special receipt with a code number,” he said. “Customers log on to the Web site and it asks for the code number from the receipt.” Stagnoli added that use of the site to redeem credits requires registration, but it only takes a minute and people’s information is secure. Besides providing the reusable bags for credits, Ray’s, as a corporate partner, will provide the necessary funds to carry out these environmental actions. “Basically we’re partnering with them and funding these projects,” Stagnoli said. “It’s a reminder for people to use their reusable bags. A lot of people are already using them. Maybe this will raise awareness for more reusable bags. That’s our hope.”
Ragen has the same hope, and also feels Ray’s has a good track record in the past when it comes to environmental issues. “Ray’s as a company has a major corporate focus on reducing energy use and reducing waste,” Ragen said. “They are really showing some vision to adopt a program like this. When people become aware of it, they really enjoy the program.” While the program was just officially kicked off on Friday, the ending date of the program is still undetermined. “We’re going to see how it works and how people like it. Hopefully it will be sort of things that doesn’t have an ending date.”
