GE Helps Grocery Chain Cuts $300,000 Annual Energy Costs Green Lighting LED
EAST CLEVELAND, Ohio — August 14, 2012 — (NYSE:GE) — Food City (Abingdon, Va.) operates 104 supermarket outlets in the tri-state regions of Southeast Kentucky, Southwest Virginia and Northeast Tennessee. Fed up with the high energy costs and maintenance hassles of fluorescent fixtures in vertical refrigerated and frozen cases, the grocer recently upgraded to GE Lighting’s Immersion™ RV40 LED lighting system in 7,400 display case doors across 89 stores. Bright, sparkling coolers now command shoppers’ attention while Food City will see a more than $300,000 drop in annual case lighting costs based on an electricity rate of $.11 per kilowatt hour and having the case lights on eighteen hours each day.
With a goal of boosting the bottom line, Food City had evaluated a wide array of strategic options, looking for the one that would have maximum impact. The team found that by installing energy-efficient LED lighting in vertical coolers in place of 48-watt fluorescent tubes, it could significantly reduce lighting and refrigeration costs – its leading overhead expenses. All-new illumination would also project a more consistent brand image from case-to-case, where light level and color uniformity varied noticeably after year
