“A coffee with…” Alejandro Martínez Berriochoa, Director of Health and Sustainability in Eroski

Alejandro Martínez Berriochoa, Director of Health and Sustainability in Eroski

Logistics Madrid: Tell us about yourself and your work. Tell us about your day-to-day work at Eroski. What are the functions you carry out?

Alejandro Martínez: In the Health and Sustainability Department we work to develop and implement the health and sustainability strategy in the customer value proposition, which is at the heart of our vocation and our way of understanding the business and which we have recently updated in our 10 Commitments to Health and Sustainability. We are working to develop a differential proposal in fresh products and in food products reformulated to be healthier, with eco-designed packaging to reduce their environmental impact and with clear and transparent nutritional information on their labelling, with a range strongly rooted in the local area, which we transport with environmentally efficient logistics to a commercial network that every day has more eco-efficient new generation shops, to satisfy informed customers through our informative products. Another of our areas of activity is social action and solidarity, in which we are very active. Every year we channel several million euros, both our own and those of our customers, into solidarity initiatives aimed at helping groups at risk of exclusion, environmental protection and development cooperation. The consequences of the pandemic caused by covid have led us to redouble our efforts in this field.

LM: The inauguration of a new Eroski logistics platform in Júndiz has recently been in the news: can you explain to us what this project means within the framework of your company’s sustainability strategy?

A.M: The incorporation of environmental improvements in both our shops and logistics platforms is a line of work that we have been developing for years. We try to minimise the impact that our activity generates by incorporating more sustainable construction criteria and equipment, which allow for greater efficiency in energy consumption and also a reduction in the emissions generated. These new facilities are part of a global project that seeks to redesign the map of fresh produce platforms. One of the main objectives is the renovation of the current facilities and their saturation. This new design also allows us to substantially improve the efficiency of the processes. These new platforms allow us to provide better and more specialised treatment according to the characteristics of each product that arrives at our shops. In this way, we consolidate the specialisation and commitment we have to offer fresh products of the highest quality together with the widest range of local products.

In addition to the modernisation of the logistics for perishable products, we have more environmentally friendly facilities. The new facilities have been designed in accordance with the standards and requirements of the international Leed Gold environmental certification, which certifies the building and its construction process and allows the platform to be recognised as an example of sustainability. It demonstrates leadership in transforming the construction industry. LEED Gold construction criteria include savings in water consumption, photovoltaic energy production, domestic hot water generation, consumption monitoring systems, ecological refrigerants, gardens with native species and recycling of the materials used in its construction, among other measures.

LM: What kind of advantages or improvements do you think projects like this bring to the fresh produce value chain and – specifically – to the end consumer?

A.M: The main strategy of the new facilities is the physical renovation of our installations, through the use of cutting-edge technology that allows optimum treatment of each type of fresh product, guaranteeing the temperature conditions for treatment, handling and storage. In addition, we aim to have a greater capacity for growth and to reduce the time that elapses between the origin and our customers. The previous map of platforms was at reduced growth levels. These new facilities allow us to be prepared to meet possible future customer demands (openings, range growth, online commerce, more local products, etc.).

LM: Finally, tell us what other projects you are carrying out in the Health and Sustainability department, what projects are you focusing on at the moment?

A.M: We currently have many innovative and interesting projects underway. We are reinforcing the sustainability of our commercial offer with the introduction of a range of BIO/ECO products in food and fresh produce, and also in drugstores. Reducing the plastic footprint and the environmental impact of the packaging of our thousands of branded products is also one of the challenges we face, with the objective of ensuring full recyclability by 2025 and a 20% reduction in the use of plastic in a few years’ time. We are also promoting local products, especially when they are produced by small local producers. From a health perspective, the elimination of palm fat from all our products is already a reality, as well as the pioneering implementation of Nutri-Score nutrition labelling on more than two thousand food and fresh products, the entire range, after validation by thousands of consumers consulted. We are already seeing, moreover, that it has a positive influence on the composition of the shopping basket, which is great news because we are working to facilitate a balanced, healthy and sustainable diet.

And we are not forgetting the groups hardest hit by the pandemic: the “Solidarity Pennies” programme has managed to channel Eroski’s solidarity and that of thousands of customers, with more than two million euros in just a few months.

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