Tesco looks to cut waste with refillable packaging
Coca-Cola among brands in the trial to see if customers will return containers for reuse
Britain’s biggest supermarket group, Tesco, launched a trial on Monday that allows customers to buy food, drink and household and beauty products in reusable packaging, part of its strategy to cut plastic waste.
Britons have become increasingly aware of the amount of plastic they use in recent years, with television documentaries such as naturalist David Attenborough’s Blue Planet II particularly highlighting the dangers of plastic pollution to marine life.
In response, supermarket chains and consumer goods groups are increasingly testing refills in a drive to cut single-use plastics. Through a partnership with Loop, the global reusable packaging platform, customers in 10 Tesco stores in eastern England will be able to buy products in reusable packaging that can be returned to stores when finished so it can be cleaned, refilled and used again.
A range of 88 products will be offered, including brands such as Unilever’s Persil laundry detergent and Radox shower gel, PZ Cussons’ Carex handwash, Fevertree drinks, Heinz tomato sauce, Coca-Cola, Tetley Tea and BrewDog beer, as well as 35 Tesco own-brand essentials, such as pasta, rice, sugar and oil.
In June, Asda, Britain’s thirdbiggest grocer, extended its trial of a refill scheme after sales of several products in an initial pilot store outsold packaged alternatives. Marks & Spencer, Morrisons and Waitrose have also been testing concepts.
Tesco said it will add more products to its scheme throughout the year and the trial will be scaled up if it proves successful.
“We are determined to tackle plastic waste and one of the ways we can help is by improving reuse options available to customers,” said Tesco CEO Ken Murphy. “We’ll learn as much as we can from this to inform our future packaging plans,” he said.
The Loop platform was launched in 2019 in Paris and
New York. The launch of Loop in Tesco stores followed a yearlong online pilot that began in July 2020.
Tesco said that prices for the contents of each item are comparable to the original.
A fully refundable deposit starting at 50p (or about R10) is paid on each reusable product at the store checkout, and is refunded via an app when the customer returns the packaging to a collection point in store.