Tell Albertsons & Safeway: It's Time to Can BPA!
- by: Aaron V.
- recipient: Bob Miller, Chairman, Albertsons Companies
A recent report found 67% of nearly 200 food cans from dozens of brands and retailers tested positive for the toxic chemical bisphenol A (BPA), a hormone disrupting chemical linked to breast and prostate cancer, infertility, and type-2 diabetes.
Albertsons is one of the top grocery chains in the US with subsidiaries like Safeway, Jewel-Osco, Acme, Shaw's and Randalls and a total of 2,200 stores across the country. Thus Albertsons has the power and a moral responsibility to get toxic chemicals like BPA out of food packaging.
Albertsons has expressed a "desire" to use BPA-free packaging for its products but hasn't committed to stop using this harmful chemical. In fact, according to the report Buyer Beware, 50 percent of Albertsons and Safeway "generic" brand cans analyzed tested positive for BPA. Meanwhile, some other leading brands have already eliminated BPA from their can linings. Tell Albertsons to step up!
To read the report and learn more about efforts to reduce BPA in canned food, visit the Mind the Store campaign on the web.
It is alarming to read that your company still sells food cans lined with bisphenol A (BPA), a harmful chemical linked to breast and prostate cancer, infertility and type-2 diabetes.
Your company has expressed a desire to reduce the use of BPA in can linings, yet a new report found it is still commonly found in your food cans.
As an industry leader, you must do more to ensure that your canned foods aren’t lined with harmful chemicals like BPA or “regrettable substitutes” like PVC or styrene-based resins.
We urge you to develop a comprehensive policy to eliminate and safely substitute BPA in canned foods. Such a plan should be transparent and ensure that replacement chemicals are safe.
We support the recommendations from the new report, Buyer Beware: Toxic BPA & Regrettable Substitutes in the Linings of Canned Food and urge your company to:
1) Commit to eliminating and safely substituting BPA from your food cans and other food packaging and establishing public timelines and benchmarks for your transition to safer alternatives.
2) Conduct and publicly report on the results of “alternatives assessments,” using the GreenScreen® for Safer Chemicals or a similar third-party certification tool for assessing the safety of your can linings.
3) Label all chemicals used in can liners, including BPA or BPA alternatives; and demand that your suppliers of food can linings fully disclose safety data, so you can provide a higher level of transparency to consumers.
4) Adopt comprehensive chemical policies to safely replace other chemicals of concern in your products and packaging.
Shopping in the canned food aisle shouldn’t be a “buyer beware” situation. We hope you will show the leadership that customers like me are counting on by eliminating and safely substituting BPA in your food cans.
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