Moscow, 17 January 2022 – X5 Group (“X5” or the “Company”, LSE and MOEX ticker: FIVE), a leading Russian food retailer, announces the 2021 results of “Safety Zone”, a joint project launched at Pyaterochka and Perekrestok stores by the Centre to Search for Missing People and the Liza Alert search-and-rescue team. Last year, thanks to store employees and rescue volunteers, 1,370 lost people, including 68 children, were able to find their way home. Thirty-one more people received assistance during the first 10 days of 2022.
In 2021, help was most often sought in St Petersburg and the Leningrad region (243 people), Moscow and the Moscow region (194 people), Tatarstan (76 people), and the Sverdlovsk and Chelyabinsk regions (59 and 58 people, respectively).
“Taking care of people is a major priority for us. In addition to offering high-quality products, we also strive to lend a hand to those who are currently in need of support. For more than two years, we have been running ‘Safety Zone’ as an important social project that helps lost people get back home. Assistance is currently available at more than 18,000 Pyaterochka and Perekrestok stores across 67 regions, and we intend to keep enhancing the project to help an even greater number of people,” says Igor Shekhterman, X5 Group’s Chief Executive Officer.
The “Safety Zone” project was piloted in spring 2019 at over 2,600 Pyaterochka stores in Moscow and the Moscow region. In the autumn of the same year, the project was rolled out to all stores across the 65 regions where the chain operates. Now it is evolving in line with new store openings. In November 2020, the initiative was joined by Perekrestok stores. Safety zones are special areas in the stores marked by an orange geolocation sign to serve as a landmark for lost people. At a Pyaterochka or Perekrestok, a lost person can either ask an employee for help or wait for assistance in the designated area. Since the programme launch in 2019, help has been provided to 2,675 people.
In 2020, X5 carried out an assessment of its social initiatives, which revealed that safety zones made it possible to prevent ca. 1,800 search-and-rescue operations in 2019–2020 alone, with help delivered as quickly as possible. During that period, a total 10% of those who got lost within city limits were eventually rescued.