Hanover Co-op Earns Top CSR Honors

At the Hanover Co-op Food Stores and Auto Service Centers, corporate social responsibility takes many forms. Based on its long history of community impact, this 86-year-old cooperative recently received the 2022 Cornerstone Award from New Hampshire Businesses for Social Responsibility (NHBSR).

NHBSR’s Cornerstone Award recognizes people and organizations that “exemplify the concepts of corporate social responsibility…and promote those concepts to the greater business community within the State of New Hampshire.” 

The Hanover Co-op serves the Upper Valley region. As an $80 million business, its Vermont facilities include a grocery store, production kitchen, and administrative offices in Hartford, and an auto service center in Norwich. It operates three stores and an auto service center in Hanover and Lebanon, New Hampshire.

In presenting the award to the Hanover Co-op, NHBSR’s leadership highlighted Co-op programs such as its founding, and continued support for Willing Hands’s food rescue efforts; establishment of its customer-driven Pennies for Change program; its innovative Co-op Car Connects service to low-income drivers; launching and subsidizing the purchase of reusable crates for local farmers; national commendations through the EPA’s GreenChill initiative for environmental stewardship; food waste diversion; and more.

In receiving the award, Hanover Co-op’s Allan Reetz said, “The cooperative model is built on concern for community. The actions and principles of the Hanover Co-op remain as strong today as they were at its founding in 1936. The employees and our member-owners make our good work possible.”

[Caption]
Allan Reetz, Hanover Co-op’s Director of Public & Government Relations, receives this year’s Cornerstone Award on behalf of generations of Hanover Co-op employees. Presenting the award were NHBSR’s Executive Director Michelle Veasey (L) and Marianne Bradley (R) of Normandeau Associates.

(Photo/John Benford Photography)