Sustainability
Our Commitment to Prosperity
At The Produce Company, we are proud of being a leader in environmental sustainability and social responsibility. We make every possible effort to renew the land, reduce waste, and re-use and recycle our materials. The logic behind our commitment to conservation is simple when communities blossom, businesses thrive.
Food Composting
We recycle over 5 million pounds of green compostable waste each year, such as fruit and vegetable peels, cores, seeds, and scraps. This service to our community removes all this material from our landfills and is a great benefit to the environment.
Recycling Programs
We are conscious of waste at every level, from paperwork in the office to the boxes that our produce arrives in. We have a comprehensive program to recycle cardboard. Cardboard is bundled and used for general paper recycling.
Reusable Plastic Container (RPC) Program
A large number of raw commodities delivered to our facility are received in RPCs to help reduce packaging waste. After the RPCs have been used, we send them back to be thoroughly cleaned and reused.
Ethical and Local Sourcing
We utilize over 20 million pounds of agricultural raw materials each year and we actively source local raw materials whenever we can. We typically bring in about 70% of our needs from local California farms each year and we are constantly working towards increasing that percentage. In addition, we source our materials from ethical suppliers to help promote fair labor practices, avoid modern slavery, and protect human rights.
Transportation and Emissions Reduction
We utilize our own fleet for outbound shipments and have an effective program to maximize our loads, minimize the number of trailers on the road, and back haul ingredients and/or other products as a service to our customers. These measures reduce fuel usage and emissions. We also have company vans used to carpool employees from the San Francisco Bay Area to Tracy each day. We have over 20 employees using the company carpool, which helps reduce overall emissions.
Energy Use Reduction
We only use high-efficiency transportation vehicles which reduces the idle time and lowers energy usage, and we have aerodynamic skirts installed on our trailers which decreases the drag, improving fuel efficiency. Our entire facility has been equipped with LED lighting, and anytime a room is not in operation the refrigeration, lighting, and equipment is turned off to further reduce energy consumption.
The world continues to change, as such we will continue to introduce new ways of meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.