Village Farms Fresh is pleased to announce the company has been recognized as a ‘Giga Guru’ by its valued customer Walmart through their sustainability initiative ‘Project Gigaton’. There are currently over 6000 Walmart suppliers participating in Project Gigaton and Village Farms Fresh is in the top 18% of suppliers who have earned the status of Giga Guru. This milestone collectively with other suppliers’ actions reported is expected to reduce, avoid, or sequester over one gigaton of CO2 emissions which helped Walmart to reach their intended goal 6 years early. To make a comparison, according to Walmart this is equivalent to taking 238 million cars off the road for one year.
According to Walmart’s website Project Gigatons focus seeks to “reduce, avoid, or sequester 1 billion metric tons of CO2 emissions in their global value chain and, together with the Walmart Foundation, to protect, restore or more sustainably manage 50 million acres of land and 1 million square miles of ocean by 2030”.
Village Farms Fresh has been participating in Walmart’s Project Gigaton since the initiative began in 2017. Project Gigaton was enacted by Walmart to engage suppliers in climate action since the retailer believes most emissions exist in the product supply chains rather than their stores and distribution centers. The Giga Guru supplier recognition status is given to companies who set SMART goals in at least 3 pillars of action or science-based targets, report progress in each, complete a carbon footprint scope and then share this information with Walmart.
According to Brandon Jamison, Director of Quality Assurance for the company who is the project lead for the company’s teams who are tracking and reporting for the Walmart initiative, “Village Farms Fresh has always been an environmentally conscious company and Project Gigaton helps us to ensure we are staying on track, and at the same time, remaining open to new ideas on how to better improve our processes for reducing emissions.” Jamison also foresees future opportunities for implementing a companywide tracking system to continually monitor data and archive results collected pertaining to the areas of focus, especially as Project Gigaton expands.
Village Farms Fresh looks forward to hitting new milestones and targets for Project Gigaton. The company is motivated to get other companies involved with the Walmart initiative as well. Jamison goes on to say, “the more companies that join in, the greater the results will be for everyone”.
Project Gigaton aligns well with Village Farms Fresh’s, Good for the Earth initiative. Back 2022, Helen L. Aquino, Director of Brand Marketing & Communication for Village Farms Fresh was given the opportunity to speak with Walmart’s Project Gigaton, sustainability performance survey measuring tool, THESIS Index created by The Sustainability Consortium, on the company’s process. Aquino mentioned, “We started small as a basis for the project by recognizing our strengths and then building on these over the years, it has been a great learning tool for the company in the evolution of our sustainability goals”.
To learn more about Village Farms Fresh and their efforts pertaining to Walmart’s Project Gigaton click here . To see the full listing of all of Walmart’s Project Gigaton Supplier Recognitions click here. And to learn more about Village Farms Fresh and their Good for the Earth initiative we welcome you to visit www.villagefarmsfresh.com
About Village Farms Fresh
Village Farms Fresh, a wholly owned subsidiary of Village Farms International, Inc. (Nasdaq: VFF), is one of the largest growers, marketers, and distributors of premium-quality, greenhouse-grown fruits, and vegetables in North America. The food the company’s farmers grow is all harvested by hand from environmentally friendly, soil-less, glass greenhouses daily while utilizing the highest level of food safety standards available. The Village Farms Greenhouse Grown® brand of fruits and vegetables are marketed and distributed primarily to local retail grocers and dedicated fresh food distributors throughout the United States and Canada. Since its inception, Village Farms Fresh has been guided by sustainability principles that enable the company to grow food 365 days a year that not only feeds the growing population but is healthier for people and the planet. Village Farms Fresh is Good for the Earth® and good for you. Good for the Earth® and Garden Fresh Flavor® are not only taglines for the company but the value proposition Village Farms Fresh lives by. And this is why it Takes a Village® to deliver on this promise.