ICA Gruppen AB: Organic range continues to grow

Regulatory News:

ICA Gruppen (STO:ICA) presents its Sustainability Report for the second quarter of 2015 today. The report covers important events and initiatives within the environment, quality, ethical trade, health and community engagement.

"It is now three years since we started publishing a quarterly report of our sustainability initiatives in line our aim to both increase transparency and improve the follow-up structure. But still what is important here is not the reporting, but the actual results we achieve. And here there is a lot to be pleased about. Thanks to long-term and targeted efforts within energy, refrigerants, transports and business travel, we have achieved a real reduction in emissions of greenhouse gases. Our organic sales also continue to grow, partly due to an extended range of ICA’s private labels,” says Per Strömberg, CEO of ICA Gruppen.

Read more about the following:

Development of the organic range

In the second quarter, sales of ICA Sweden’s organic range in the Swedish ICA stores rose by 58% (62) compared with the corresponding period in the previous year. At the same time development of new organic products continued, including the launch of a number of new items within the "I love eco” concept.

Sharp increase in take-back of unused medicines

Apotek Hjärtat’s campaign to encourage people to return unused medicines to their nearest pharmacy resulted in an increase in collection during the first and second quarters of 2015 of a full 42%.

150,000 downloads of the "ICA hälsorabatt” (ICA health discount) app

To encourage a daily dose of exercise, ICA Sweden launched the "ICA hälsorabatt” app at the end of the previous quarter. The app registers all movement during the day – and every completed kilometre then provides a discount on selected products. The app has been downloaded more than 150,000 times since its launch.

ICA Gruppen’s sustainability reporting acclaimed

At the beginning of June, the Swedish professional institute for authorised public accountants (FAR) awarded ICA Gruppen an honourable mention in the "Best Sustainability Report” competition. Later in the same month, ICA Gruppen also received an honourable mention in the Swedish environmental magazine Miljörapporten’s review "Best Sustainability Report by a Listed Company”.

ICA Gruppen discloses the information provided herein pursuant to the Securities Market Act and/or the Financial Instruments Trading Act. The information was submitted for publication at 8:00 CET on Thursday, 20 August, 2015.

ICA Gruppen AB (publ) is a leading retail company with a focus on food and health. The Group includes ICA Sweden and Rimi Baltic which mainly conduct grocery retail, ICA Real Estate which owns and manages properties, ICA Bank which offers financial services and Apotek Hjärtat which conducts pharmacy operations. The Group also includes the wholly owned portfolio company inkClub and the partly owned portfolio company Hemtex. For more information see icagruppen.se

This information was brought to you by Cision http://news.cision.com

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20150819006335/en/