Moscow, 29 April 2020 – X5 Retail Group N.V. ("X5" or the "Company"), a leading Russian food retailer that operates the Pyaterochka, Perekrestok and Karusel chains (LSE and MOEX ticker: "FIVE"), together with Centre to Search for Missing People ("CSMP") and the Liza Alert search and rescue team announced the results of the first year of their joint "Safety Zone" project. Thanks to the Safety Zones available in more than 15,500 Pyaterochka stores across 65 Russian regions, 502 people were able to return home.
In the year since the start of the project, 445 people who did not know how to get home, 40 of whom were children, turned to store employees for help. Those seeking assistance were mainly adults, mostly elderly people. In addition, 57 people asked the hotline to search for their lost relatives. All were safely returned home. More than 2,750 people were able to obtain information on the procedure for actions in case of a person’s loss or disorientation by calling the hotline.
The Safety Zones continue to work during the COVID-19 pandemic. To prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus infection, permanent teams of 2 people were formed from Liza Alert volunteers. Each volunteer group is provided with personal protective equipment including masks, gloves, glasses and antiseptic agents. During the pandemic, more than 70 lost people were given assistance returning home by store employees and volunteers.
The Safety Zone is a special designated area in each Pyaterochka store, marked by a distinctive sign in the form of an orange geolocation pin, showing this is where lost people should go to seek help. Any lost person in a store can ask to a Pyaterochka employee for assistance or wait for help to be offered. About 50 thousand employees of the retail chain have completed a full training course and now know how to identify a lost or disoriented person and know how to assist them in-store. The store director reports each such case to the CSMP hotline, whose specialist, depending on the situation, calls an ambulance, police or sends a representative of the Liza Alert team to the supermarket.
Pyaterochka is the first retail chain to launch this kind of project with Liza Alert. It focuses on helping people with dementia, as well as children who are lost. According to Liza Alert, in Russia more than 100 thousand people are lost annually. Thanks to the Safety Zones, each lost elderly person or child will be helped to return home.
In addition, Pyaterochka and the search and rescue team have launched a special portal liza.5ka.ru, where everyone can find the addresses of Pyaterochka stores where they help lost people, get useful information about the project, help disoriented people, read stories of volunteers and learn how they can contribute to the search for missing people.