Building sustainable communities
We have been supporting communities across Ireland to become more sustainable for many years and we still want to do more.
Musgrave is the biggest supporter of local producers in Ireland. Local suppliers produce some of the best products on the market, and they are generating local employment and cutting carbon emissions by reducing food miles. Our Food Academy programme gives small producers the chance to reach far more customers.
Meanwhile, the GAA is a real part of our national identity. We’ve been keeping the nation active by supporting our national sport for over 10 years. As well as sponsoring the GAA Football All-Ireland Senior Championship, our brands and retail partners will contribute over €2.6 million to grassroots GAA clubs across the country this year. In this way, we hope to make communities vibrant and keep that sense of pride in their local areas and national sport.
Commitments
- By 2020 we will increase our support for local suppliers by 25%
- By 2020 we will expand the award‑winning TidyTowns programme to encompass 25% more communities, enhancing local and built environments across Ireland
- By 2020 we will support Musgrave colleagues to complete 10,000 hours of community volunteering annually
- We will work with Business in the Community to embed sustainable business practices in Irish SMEs
- By 2020 we will increase by 25% the number of small suppliers we support in our retail and foodservice businesses through our Food Academy programmes
Autism-friendly stores
We want to help communities to become more inclusive. That’s why we support Clonakilty, Ireland’s first autism-friendly town, a project spearheaded by local SuperValu retailers. The town’s SuperValu store was the first in Ireland to make changes to help the autism community enjoy a better shopping experience. Now SuperValu is working to create autism-friendly stores across Ireland, with more than 100 stores holding events like autism-friendly shopping evenings. We’re working closely with AsIAm and Midleton Centre for Autism to raise awareness and help make our communities a better place to live, work and play for everyone.
TidyTowns
SuperValu has been supporting and sponsoring TidyTowns for over 25 years. It is more than a competition about improving how an area looks, although that is important too. It is also about bringing people together, giving them pride in their local community and inspiring them to give something back to the area where they live. In recent years TidyTowns has done more to tackle social isolation and to encourage sustainability initiatives in towns. By 2020 we want to expand TidyTowns even further, so that it reaches 25% more communities across Ireland.
