Officials with Fareway Grocery Stores said Friday (today), effective with the expiration of the Iowa Governor’s Emergency Declaration on July 25th, Fareway will not be accepting containers for redemption in its Iowa stores. Health authorities continue to advise that COVID-19 and other viruses are transmitted through respiratory droplets. Reynolds W. Cramer, President & CEO of Fareway, says “Accepting potentially contaminated containers inside our stores presents a great risk of harm to the health and safety of our employees and customers.

“In addition, Iowa law requires grocery stores to meet health and food safety guidelines for all employees and customers.  Allowing used containers to be returned in our stores puts our employees and customers at risk, and runs counterproductive to the many safety and sanitation initiatives we have implemented in order to keep people safe.”

Each store has posted a notice listing nearby redemption centers, where customers may redeem bottles and cans. Fareway encourages local communities to focus their redemption on supporting these businesses and/or area non-profits that provide outside collection bins for donation. Cramer said “At its core, our actions in rejecting container redemption inside our stores is to minimize potential harm to the communities we serve, while offering our customers alternative redemption options.