Kendrick Repko is the Director of Sustainable Products for Ahold Delhaize USA, the parent company to the largest grocery retail group on the East Coast and the fourth largest grocery retail group in the US. In her current role, Kendrick is responsible for the environmental and social aspects related to the hundreds of thousands of products sold across ADUSA store shelves.  Kendrick leads the Scope 3 value chain emissions work, oversees human rights, animal welfare, sustainable packaging and responsible sourcing of critical commodities.

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John: Welcome to another edition of the Impact podcast, I’m John Shegerian and I’m so excited to have with us today Kendrick Repko. She’s the director of Sustainable Products at Ahold Delhaize, and you can find at aholddelhaizeusa.com. We’ll give that website in our show notes. Welcome, Kendrick, to our show today.

Kendrick Repko: Great. Thanks so much for having me.

John: Yeah. Kendrick, you’re sitting today, I’m in Fresno, California, you’re in Quincy, Massachusetts, I want our listeners and viewers to get to know you a little bit. Where you grow up and how did you get on this very important journey that you’re on?

Kendrick: Yeah. Well, happy to share. It’s kind of a, not a straight line, let’s say. I grew up in Delaware, and I went to school at University Delaware, and I graduated in nutrition. I’m a dietitian, and we had to, as part of being a dietitian, you go to an internship, so I went to Massachusetts General Hospital and, so that was exciting. Really liked what I did, and from there I went and worked in a hospital. When I was in the hospital, I thought, wow, maybe dietetics wasn’t really what I wanted to do, so I thought, what else is out there? I went back to school and I went into communications at Tufts University. I went, yeah, I went there Friedman school.

John: [inaudible]. Wow.

Kendrick: Yeah. I was there at the Friedman School of Nutrition science and policy, and there I learned a lot about policy and I was really taken aback by what you could do in the space of policy. I graduated with communications specific to nutrition and went and worked for a media relations firm, and so a lot of the work that I did was pitching stories. Again, I thought, no, I don’t think this is for me either.

John: [inaudible] We’ve learned over the years, I’ve learned over the years it’s great to know what you don’t want to do, [inaudible] what you do want to do, right?

Kendrick: Yes. Actually, I would encourage people to try things so you know whether or not you like them. Thankfully, some of my classmates in school, one of them worked for this great company, Ahold Delhaize, and so they told me about a role, and I went for it, and I got it. The role was around labeling. I was in the private brands team, and I looked at packaging claims and said what could and could not be said about the product, and so during that time, there was a new space that opened up, and it was social compliance manager, and I thought, well, what the heck is that? I went and I talked to my boss, and they said, tell me more about this role, and he said, you know what, you would be great for that role, you go for that role, and let’s see what happens. I applied for it, I got it, and 17 years later, I’m still here.

John: You got that role 17 years ago, you got it to that role?

Kendrick: Yes. Yeah.

John: Unbelievable.

Kendrick: It was great. I started with… sorry.

John: No, no, go. I love it.

Kendrick: With social compliance, it’s around looking at your private brand products and where the product is sourced and making sure that the people that create the product, that they’re treated fairly. I took that role, and then it expanded, and we looked at what’s called critical commodities, and so we have a few critical commodities that we focus on because we want to make sure that those commodities are around for the future. Those commodities are seafood, coffee, tea, palm oil, soy and cocoa, and then from there, there was an opportunity… Actually, it formerly was Ahold, so I worked for Ahold, but then we merged in 2017 with delays, and then I was able to be really the sustainability lead for one of our brands. I got to do that and got really into the operations side to see how the grocery industry works. Now, I’m in this role, which is kind of full circle, but looking at the products.

John: So for our listeners and viewers, first of all, I’m going to refer to a whole Delhaize USA as A-D-U-S-A on this show just to make it less helpful, but it’s going to be in the show notes there, wonderful website. I’m going to spell it out now, A-H-O-L-D-D-E-L-H-A-I-Z-EUSA.com. but it’s going to be in the show notes, everyone will be able to reference it. I’m going to refer to your firm as ADUSA. Now, it’s fascinating because I started this show 17 years ago and you and I were just chatting off the air a little bit, and so we’re going to get to walk on this sort of concurrent, analogous path because we knew 17 years ago, you guys, before it was really cool to be sustainable and circular and all these very important trends that are now really huge trends.

Kendrick: Yeah.

John: You guys were doing it way before it was cool, and that’s so important for our listeners and viewers to hear, and you were stepping into that role and you helped evolve that role, and that’s fun, but before we get even into all that part of the journey, help us understand, Kendrick, ADUSA, how big this brand is, what are the brands that are under your umbrella that our listeners and viewers can be very familiar with?

Kendrick: Yeah. Sure. We are the fourth largest grocery retailer in the US.

John: Wow.

Kendrick: We’re the largest on the east coast, but it might be better to say what those brands are, so going from north to south, we have Hannaford, we have Stop and Shop, we have the Giant Company Martin’s, Giant Food and Food Line.

John: Wow.

Kendrick: Yeah.

John: As you and I know, and we were saying this, that this is a absolute compliment to you and to the fraternity, you’re in one of the coolest and neatest fraternities, I think, on the planet, but as you and I know, the titles are somewhat different, they’re chief impact officers, director of ESGs, Chief Sustainability Officers. You’re the director of sustainable products, can you share a little bit what that actually means at ADUSA, what does that mean, and what’s your day to day role look like?

Kendrick: Yeah. Sure. My team and I were responsible for all of the social and environmental aspects tied to the thousands of products that we sell online and on our shelves, and so that means things like animal welfare, human rights, plastic packaging, those are all under me and my team’s scope. We work closely with the merchandisers, the sourcing teams, and really discuss what our ambitions are, as well as how can we get there and work together. It’s really exciting.

John: Does your company put out a sustainability or impact report every year?

Kendrick: Yes. Yeah. That’s something we’ve been doing actually for quite some time now, which is great. We are a Dutch company and so our headquarters are based in Zaandam and we have operations across Europe and also into Indonesia.

John: That impact report gets published in the spring, the fall, the summer, when did it…

Kendrick: Yeah. We just had it, I think it was a couple weeks ago, so it’s published now.

John: It’s published now, and it lives in perpetuity on your website?

Kendrick: That’s right.

John: Wonderful. Again, the website will be in our show notes for our listeners and viewers and to access then their impact report or sustainability report, you can find it up on there on ADUSA’s website. Now, explain then, sustainability and the grocery industry as a whole. Most people wouldn’t think, well, wait a second, is there really a nexus, but as we get into it, I think they’ll see it’s actually intertwined and lives together, the importance of it living together. Can you explain grocery and sustainability and how that really is so critical to work together?

Kendrick: Absolutely. What I love is that the grocery industry is actually quite dynamic. We sell so many different products and so there are so many things to learn about. I’m a very curious person, I like to ask a lot of questions, and so it’s really great to get into so many different topics within sustainability. For example, with climate, we know that climate impacts our supply, we even see that, like there’s some droughts, droughts actually over in Spain, that’s impacting olive oil supply, so we’re going to see prices of olive oil go up. We are seeing all these different things happening around the globe that do impact us. We know it’s important and critical to address those things through a lot of our different efforts, which is around even climate healthy sales, for example, that’s another area that is important to our communities. We want to be able to provide affordable products to our customers and make it easy for them to find choices. We actually have a program called Guiding Stars that is a nutrition navigation system, and what it does is it looks at some of the products, the attributes, the nutrition, and says, okay, things like fiber, there’s this much of fiber, oh, there might be this much of saturated fat, and so it puts it through this algorithm and then out comes a score and you see it as either one, two or three stars on our shelf tags, and so customers can go, and if they’re interested in what is a more nutritious item, they can look for the stars, the guiding stars.

John: When you mentioned earlier, one of the things that you’re in charge of is critical commodities, now in our industry, in the electronics industry, years ago, the OEMs that we work with were just coming along slowly on this, but now they all seem to have designed for sustainability where they’re looking for their critical commodities to put back into their new electronics. Talk about what critical commodities mean to the grocery industry and to ADUSA, and how is that, how do you work on those issues on a regular basis given, like you said, the shifting climate issues that are ever changing in dynamic?

Kendrick: Yeah. Sure. Well, seafood is one example. That’s one that we’ve been working on. Actually, when I first started many years ago, seafood, sustainable seafood was just happening and there was lots of different certifications out there, and now there is kind of a standardized body that’s helping with that and which has been helpful, but now every retailer that you into, grocery retailer, they tend to sell sustainable seafood, but what that looks at is overfishing, so that takes into account fish populations. If you’re looking at farmed products, then it looks into account like the density of the pens that the fish are in, as well as any antibiotic use that they’re using. There’s a lot of different aspects within the different topics that we look into and make sure that we have a certification that makes it so the product is being grown or harvested in a responsible way.

John: My daughter is 37 now, she’s a mom, she’s very successful in business, this is a conversation we have at dinner on a regular basis. What is now the standard? We like to buy salmon for our households, for our two households. How do we know is farm better than fresh, is fresh better than farm, and what’s the certification that we should be looking for?

Kendrick: Yeah. Each has its benefits, but for farm seafood, we tend to look at Aquaculture Stewardship Council, ASC, or best Aquaculture Practices, BAP. Those are the two certifications for farm. Then for wild caught, we tend to look at Marine Stewardship Council, so MSC.

John: What are some of the other critical commodities that are most pressing or worrying you the most right now?

Kendrick: Coffee and tea and cocoa. We look at each of those, cocoa not only from the environmental standpoint, because it’s only grown in between a certain degree on the globe, so there’s only a few areas in the world that is like opportune or the best place to grow cocoa, and if a disease comes through, it could wipe it out. Also, we see that farmers just making sure that the farmers are being taken care of and are getting paid fairly, that’s something that we’re really concerned about, too. Those are some of the examples, and same with coffee and same with tea, very similar.

John: If I was to just say what I read in the paper of the last three or four months, it seems as though there’s some supply chain issues with chocolate and cocoa right now, is that an ongoing worry or is that going to be resolved at some point, is that geopolitical or is that just shortages or that more climate change?

Kendrick: You know, I am not sure.

John: Okay. I don’t know either.

Kendrick: It could be all of it, to be honest. Yeah.

John: Right. Well, one of the things that I’ve read about you is that you’re in charge of scope three value chain emissions. What does that really mean, because scope three is sort of seems like the Rubik’s cube part of the sustainability journey, it’s one of the toughest parts of the sustainability journey. You’ve taken on that scope three value chain emissions work. What does that mean for you at ADUSA?

Kendrick: Yeah. I actually really enjoy scope three. It’s like you said, it’s kind of ambiguous right now, it’s building the plane as we’re flying, it is how it feels, but I like that kind of getting comfortable with the uncomfortable, and not everybody is…

John: Not everybody’s comfortable there, you seem to be comfortable/

Kendrick: Exactly. But let me just do, I’ll cover the different scopes. You have scopes one, two and three. Scope one that is really your in your direct control. For us, in our stores, it’s the types of lights you put in your stores, like LED lights or perhaps the ovens, we do gas ovens or electric ovens. Then we have scope two, which is the power source, and that is like, are we energizing our stores through fossil fuel or are we doing it through a renewable fuel? Then you have scope three, which is basically everything else, and so it’s all the way… The emissions associated to how the product is grown on the farm, the emissions associated to how the product is transported to a manufacturer, the emissions associated to that, and then to our stores, you leapfrog our stores and then out the back door with the consumer. How is that product being used, the emissions associated to that and disposed, so it’s massive, and it’s about 95% of our total footprint is scope three.

John: Wow. Is then part of your job in terms of, for instance, you have how many products that you’re concerned with at your company. We’re talking about thousands of products you’re in charge of now drilling down on their scope three emissions.

Kendrick: That’s absolutely right, yeah.

John: Is that where you use AI in computer algorithms or how does that really, because that sounds like a fascinating but a little bit overwhelming matrix.

Kendrick: Yes, it is. What we’re doing, so we are working closely with our suppliers and data is an issue because right now, because I mentioned it’s still evolving, getting accurate data, and so a lot of it, and everybody’s in the same spot who is working on this, a lot of it are estimates.

John: Right.

Kendrick: They’re estimates upon estimates. We’re working with companies trying to figure out, are there better ways for us to measure our product emissions? We’re working directly with our suppliers to say, what are your emissions, this is what we’re saying, yours are, let’s marry them up and see, like, where do we differ, and then also, not only that, but how can we work together to reduce them, because their emissions are our emissions, and so the only way to lower our footprint is to work with them to lower their footprint.

John: Wow. You could be working out with an amazing farming group out of South America, and they have all the best intentions, they’re creating a great product that is selling off your shelves, but figuring out how much energy they’re using, what their emissions are, what it is to get to their manufacturing plant, to get from then the manufacturing plant to you, the packaging plant and the packaging plant to your shelves is, t that itself is just mind boggling, and that’s just one product?

Kendrick: Right. Exactly.

John: Wow.

Kendrick: Yeah. We have some pretty exciting things. Yeah. For example, Thai union is one of our suppliers.

John: Okay.

Kendrick: They are a shrimp supplier of ours, and they’ve been working with the Nature Conservancy to look at how can they lower emissions on their shrimp farms, and they figured out a way to do that. Same with the feed that they use. Now we’ve said, you know what, we want to sell that product, and so it’s a lower carbon product compared to their conventional product and what that will do, it’ll also help lower our emissions. We’re reaching out to suppliers saying, are you guys looking into this sort of thing, is there some way that we can work together on how we can lower these emissions? Even innovations, that’s something that we’re interested in and exploring. We don’t have anything lined up yet, but that’s something that we want to learn about.

John: For all listeners and viewers who just join us, we’ve got Kendrick Repko with us, she’s the director of sustainable products at Ahold Delhaize. I’m not going to spell out the website because it’s too long, I’m going to put it in the show notes, where you can find Kendrick there and all her colleagues and all the important work they’re doing in sustainability. Kendrick, let’s go back to the coolest fraternity in the world. Now you’re working on truly one of the most difficult, most difficult issues in sustainability and radical transparency, by the way, do you ever go back to that cool fraternity of sustainability circular economy officers that are now widespread not only in the United States, but around the world, and go, what are you doing under scope three, how does it work for you, and are you guys helping each other figure this, all this Rubik’s cube out?

Kendrick: Yes. Absolutely. We are involved in a lot of industry forums, one of which is the consumer goods forum, where we work together specifically on scope three, we also talk about other areas like food waste and plastics packaging, but definitely with sustainability, like you said, it is so fun and exciting because people want to help and people want to do the right thing, and so you’ll find whenever you reach out to someone, they’re like, yes, let’s figure this out together, and it’s typically a pre-competitive space and where you can come together and figure things out. It’s not easy, and so you need to have multiple minds in one room.

John: As you said earlier, you’ve been doing this 17 years, so it’s ADUSA’s genetic DNA and part of their makeup to be a sustainable company, it’s a priority at ADUSA, but explain some of the bold targets and commitments your company has made to sustainability that are measurable.

Kendrick: Yeah. Food waste is a great example, and that’s something that we’ve worked a long time on since 2016. We’re well on our way to cut our food waste in half by 2030. You mentioned industry groups, we work with the US Food Waste Pact, and that’s a pre-competitive space where we work together with other large retailers and food companies to say, how are you guys doing this, how are you measuring this, do we use the same definitions, what is the holistic way to go about it? We’re also part of an initiative, 10 by 20 by 30, so it’s 10 of the largest food retailers and companies or more, and they work with 20 of their suppliers to reduce food waste in half by 2030, so 10 by 20 by 30. Our stores are really well equipped in addressing food waste through our donation program, we’re members of feeding America. We have frequent pickups, all of our stores have frequent pickups with their local food banks, and in 2023, we donated over 140 million pounds through our food rescue efforts, so we’re very proud of that. We’re also looking at technology that helps us with our forecasting and our ordering, so making sure that we’re not buying too much or too little, but that’s how we’re addressing our food waste efforts.

John: Interesting. What are the consumer habits? You’ve been there 17 years, so you’ve had a fascinating front row seat to the consumers. How were they part of this delicate ballet and dance of sustainability, how much of sustainability and your sustainable practices matter to them, and have you seen an increasing awareness to this relationship over the years and where does it stand today, what have you seen in your journey?

Kendrick: Yeah. I’ve seen a big increase. What’s interesting, we do a lot of consumer insights. Being on the east coast, what we found is that our consumer base tends to be more sustainability leaning, so 79% of our consumers are interested in sustainability when they shop. What’s interesting though is they don’t always purchase sustainably, and that’s price is still a barrier, availability is still a barrier. We’re a mainstream grocery retailer and so working with our suppliers, that’s one area where we can say how can we get more sustainable products but more sustainable products at an affordable price, because our customers are very much interested in it.

John: That’s so interesting, that’s fascinating. I tend to agree. 79% are interested, and if you were to take 100% of your shoppers, is there also a breakdown on what percentage are males and females?

Kendrick: You know, I bet there is, but I don’t have it.

John: Yeah. I don’t know any either. I would thought it was maybe more females, but maybe it’s mixed now more even, I don’t know. That’s fascinating. Talk about your counterparts, so even you’re a Dutch based company, you are the head of director of sustainable products at ADUSA, how many other counterparts do you have, is it in Europe and other parts, is it South America, how far does the reach go and how much do your counterparts in you share information and best practices?

Kendrick: Yeah. We do work closely with our sister brands and also with the way that we’re set up is we have the US region, we have our corporate over in the Netherlands, and then we have folks embedded in each of our brands, and so depending on the topic, we’ll have a global call where we will share best practices. That’s really fascinating because what we’re finding is that what works over there oftentimes will work over here, but the uptick might be a little bit slower, but it’s just trying to put things forward, and also, it works both ways. One thing that the US is a shining star at that might not be so much is our donations, so here, we’re very, very good at donating, Europe, it’s not the same, which is quite fascinating.

John: Yeah.

Kendrick: There’s just different strengths within each of the brands.

John: Right. Talk a little bit about your journey. Like you said earlier, there’s no straight line, I’ve heard that from hundreds and hundreds of my guests over the years, straight lines are sort of a thing of the past. You’re a registered dietitian, you got a communications degree, and now you’re one of the sustainability OGs of the industry, rock stars of the industry. Talk a little bit to the next generation that are listening and watching this show, young people in high school, young people just coming out of college that want to be the next Kendrick, that want to not only just make a paycheck, but want to make a difference at the same time. What advice can you give them for their journey that lies ahead of?

Kendrick: Yeah. Well, it’s great because I try my best. When I have someone reach out to me, I try my best to meet with them and talk to them because I do feel like there’s very much pay it forward, and I do feel like, honestly, a lot of people are very much interested in this, and there’s a lot of room to have people come and try to solve these very complicated problems. I would encourage folks to really work wherever they are, even if they have, I don’t know, like my teenager, I have a teenage boys, they’re looking to start a job, when they go to a job, what can they do that is more sustainable and can they bring it up to their manager? Even like in our own store operations, we have sustainable practices, and we call them green captains, and they’re in charge of making sure that our donations are done on time, or if they see ways that they can reduce, maybe bag use in the store, offer that up and offer it as a suggestion, but I think that young folks that are interested in this space is to reach out to people like me, I’m sure there’s a lot of other people on LinkedIn that they can connect with to say, how do I like, what would you recommend? We have interns that we’re going to host this summer and that we’re excited about, and so there is a lot of opportunity in this space.

John: When I was in college, which is a long time ago, there was no such thing as environmental science degrees and things of that such. I guess there’s a happy balance out there of people taking indirect lines like you did with dietitian and communication expert and then a sustainability rock star, but taking also now classic routes are available where they can go get an environmental science degree or master’s degree and then become an intern and then work their way up, too. I guess there’s dual and numerous paths now young people could take to become the next Kendrick rep goes.

Kendrick: Well, what’s interesting is we joke in our company is that ultimately, we want to get to a place where we don’t have a sustainability team, and everybody is practicing sustainable sustainably in their day to day jobs, so that’s something I think even working with folks in legal folks in government affairs, they’re all looking at how can I incorporate sustainability, so I do think there is this growth and interest, and really, there is a lot of passion behind it.

John: Interesting. Do a little look back and look forward, for me, when you look backwards, because you’ve been there 17 years, what are you most proud of that your company or what project that you’re most proud of that you’ve accomplished with your team at your company, and then what are you most excited about that’s coming up in the future and that you could talk about Kendrick?

Kendrick: Yeah. I would say for me, setting up the social compliance role because that was so new. Looking back, what was interesting is when we started it, we noticed that, well, we like to report, we report on everything, we have lots of metrics, and we report on everything. One of the things we report on is how many of the companies that we work with have a social compliance audit, and we had set a standard for a particular audit, which was a European based standard. We do business in the US. Most of the standards over here were US based, and they were individual stores, and so we worked with the team to say, we’re not telling the right story if we’re only reporting on this European audit, it’s not the right story. We know that our suppliers are doing the right thing, it’s just we don’t recognize this particular audit. What we did is we created a stepping stone system, which still exists today, and so we’ll have a supplier who has demonstrated that they have something, and then if they are a long term supplier, they’ll move over to an audit that we accept. That actually helps a lot with even your smaller or medium sized suppliers that might not be as mature or along the way as some of our larger suppliers, but just establishing that program, and now there is a standard organization out there that does look at the different social audits and make sure that they have at least one benchmark that everybody can go towards. Looking ahead, I would say the work in scope three, because it is so critical and so important. I also really enjoy the collaboration, I really like working with other companies and I also like learning from other companies. So, for example, we’re exploring collaborations at the farm level with some of our key suppliers, and this is great. I’m not a farmer, so I get to go and learn from farmers, see what they’re doing, what practices that they’ve put in place to lower emissions, how can we build that, and I create it to scale, how can we work with other industries, bring in other retailers to be part of these collaborations, because that’s the only way that we can get there. We can’t just do things in silos, we have to bring others along.

John: So important that you just said, I so agree with you. I think the old days of single entrepreneurs doing amazing things, Ala Steve Jobs or something, which was wonderful, and he’s amazing, and I love his products, but those days are done a little bit. I think the collaborative spirit in the circular economy is more important than ever before to actually make the impacts that we all need and want to be made.

Kendrick: Yes, I agree. Yeah.

John: That’s fascinating. Kendrick, well, listen, you’re always welcome back. As one thing that you and I have both learned over the last 17 years, where you and I both been doing what we’re doing here, is that sustainability doesn’t have a finish line, it’s really just a journey. In so many ways, it’s truly an interesting and wonderful and fascinating journey, so you’re always welcome back here to share any accomplishments and new things you want to share with our listeners and viewers, because what you’re doing is so important to the health and welfare, and of our listeners and viewers who eat and enjoy the products that you sell at ADUSA. It’s so important for us to understand that. So, Kendrick, you’re always welcome back here, I’m grateful for the time and your wisdom that you shared with us today, but actually, what I’m most grateful for is all the important work you and your colleagues are doing at Ahold USA to make the world a better place.

Kendrick: Well, thank you, John. It was really great being here and I appreciated it.

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