Earth Day is a day designed to inspire awareness and appreciation for the Earth's environment.  The United Nations celebrates Earth Day each year on the spring equinox, which is often 20 March. This is a tradition which was founded by peace activist John McConnell in 1969; this year it held today, April 22.

As a leader in Environmental awareness, Native Maine Produce & Specialty Foods continues to make major infrastructure and operational investments to conserve our precious natural resources.

Last summer we converted the lighting throughout our entire food distributing facility to utilize proximity sensor technology.  Zoned Lighting automatically turns off lights when no motion is detected within a zone for three minutes.

This year’s major energy conservation project is the implementation of a Freeaire® refrigeration system that will literally blow cold air from Mother Nature into 350,000 cubic feet of our Westbrook, Maine refrigerated warehouse space.  This will significantly reduce the need for electrically powered compressors to cool our fresh produce. The major investment demonstrates a continued commitment to sustainable, environmentally responsible business practices.  Check out website for more details about our green facility.

Did you know that since 2008, Native Maine Produce & Specialty Foods has operated its warehouse facilities without the use of fossil fuels for electricity?   It’s true; all electricity utilized for Native Maine’s refrigeration is purchased only from renewable sources!

We Operate The Newest, Greenest, Eco-Friendly Fleet in Town!

Native Maine’s downtown fleet of refrigerated delivery trucks have been replaced with four smaller ultra ecological 2010 GMC Box Trucks. These trucks use Automatic Start/Stop Technology that minimizes total engine hours with less fuel consumed and less evacuating exhaust. They use R-404 Refrigerant that is clean air “Zero Ozone Depletion.”  Their small size = better efficiency in an area that requires more stops and smaller orders more frequently!

Here are a few more examples of Native Maine’s Earth-Friendly practices:

Shipping

• Native Maine (NMPSF) ships in strict accordance to municipal ordinances and for environmental concerns; some of which involve restricting the use of Styrofoam®, wooden crates and other farm supplied packing materials.
• We offer to remove excess packaging and to ship your orders on pallets, thus reducing the amount of corrugate cardboard and poly plastics.
• All customers are encouraged to return our own lgo clad cardboard boxes and milk crates to the driver for immediate re-use/recycling.
• Re-usable “Totes” are offered on many routes for all piece product.

Wasted Product

• Inventory deemed “below our high quality standard” is provided to a local farm for animal feed.   No edible (animal) inventory is wasted.

Our Warehouse

• Cooling units are all Freon®-free, environmentally friendly.  This includes 9 cooling units as well as our office HVAC system.
• NMPSF’s warehouse was designed with super resourceful air flow systems that circulate fresh air evenly. Equipped with computer controlled louvers in our building’s roof and walls, we can refresh the air in our facility several times an hour.
• All refrigeration systems are fully integrated to maximize efficiency. For example, in our “dry goods” warehouse area, the hot-air furnaces, ceiling fans, roof and wall louvers adjust warehouse conditions according to outside weather patterns automatically.
• Lighting is managed by proximity sensors, reducing energy use when office areas and restrooms are vacant.
• Restrooms use SLOAN™ water efficiency systems to automatically flush toilets.
• NMPSF utilizes a giant trash compacter which reduces the emptying intervals, reducing the number of weekly trips the waste removal trucks must make to manage waste.
• 100% of the light bulbs in our facility have been updated with Energy Star Certified bulbs.
  • We replaced all aging fluorescent light fixtures with modern, eco-friendly, low-energy ballasts and bulbs.
  • Even our “Exit” signs have long lasting, ultra efficient LED’s.
• During the building renovation, we recycled approximately 20 tons of steel!

The Native Maine Campus

• Our entire communications network is Energy Star Certified equipment and is configured to reduce energy consumption. This consists of our telephones, fax machines, servers, workstation computers, monitors, printers, routers and switches. (Even the television in our employee break room!)
• NMPSF returns 100% of empty toner cartridges to the manufacturer for re-use. Our heavy-cycle printer contains lightweight, plastic toner “tubes” not bulky cartridges. (And yes, even the toner tubes are recycled!)
• NMPSF utilizes a fax-server, keeping most fax documents in an electronic state, reducing the need for printed materials.
• Office paper, corrugated cardboard, plastic bottles and aluminum cans are collected and sorted on-site for recycling.

Advertising Policies

• Our price lists, newsletters, promotions and primary source of communication relies heavily on email and the internet, saving as much paper as possible.
• All printed advertising material is on recycled paper.

Cleaning Agents

• The warehouse/food storage areas of NMPSF floors are regularly cleaned using only eco-friendly, non-toxic, food-grade (HACCP certified) cleaners under very high pressure by our own full time staff.