Safer Customer Receipts

On September 30, 2014, PCC Natural Markets (PCC), the nation’s largest natural foods retail cooperative, announced that its customers at all ten locations now receive receipts from paper free of Bisphenol A (BPA) and Bisphenol S (BPS), compounds that have been linked to a variety of health concerns.  BPA has been banned from baby bottles and sippy cups and has been voluntarily eliminated by manufacturers of some other consumer products.

Alpha® Free receipt paper was developed by Wisconsin-based Appvion, Inc.  Made with a vitamin C-based thermal coating, Alpha Free paper receipts are naturally yellow and easy for consumers to distinguish from other receipts.

Speaking in support of the well-being of PCC employees and shoppers, Nancy Taylor, director of human resources, stated that “PCC provides more than 7 million transaction receipts annually, touched first by our cashiers and then put into the hands of our customers.  We are pleased to provide Appvion’s Alpha Free paper, which we believe to be much safer to use in an environment where food is handle and sold.

In recent years, PCC had been using a double-sided receipt paper which, while free of BPA, contains BPS.  BPS is suspected of having toxic effects similar to those of BPA.  Appvion’s Alpha Free receipt paper is the first that is free of phenols and controversial phenol substitutes.  The change to Alpha Free paper has required a return to single-sided receipts, but PCC feels that the trade-off – longer receipts but safer ones – is warranted.

For more information, at PCC Natural Markets contact Diana Chapman at [email protected].  At Appvion, contact Dave Pauly, product manager, at [email protected]; or Bill Van Den Brandt, senior manager, corporate communications, at [email protected].