Tesco has begun giving shoppers in some of its stores the option to buy a wide range of food, drink, household, and beauty products in reusable packaging.
In partnership with reusable packaging platform, Loop, customers in ten large Tesco supermarkets in the east of England will be able to buy products in durable packaging that can be returned to store when finished so it can be cleaned, refilled and used again.
The new reusable range of 88 products will include major brands such as Persil, Fever-Tree, Carex, Tetley Tea and BrewDog. Tesco has also included 35 own label essentials in the range, such as pasta, rice, oil and sugar, with more products to be added throughout the year.
Customers wishing to opt for reusable packaging have to visit a Loop fixture in the Tesco store and add the products they want into their trolley as a part of their shop. The Loop range comes ready prefilled, negating the need for people to bring their own containers or refill themselves. The likes of Asda, Waitrose, and M&S have been trialling the sale of products packaging-free where the customer fills up containers in-store.
Prices for the contents of each item being sold by Tesco are comparable to the original. A refundable deposit starting at £0.20 is paid on each reusable product at checkout and this is refunded via an app when the customer returns the packaging to a collection point in the store.
The retailer highlighted that if customers in the 10 stores switched their standard tomato ketchup, cola and washing up liquid bottles to the reusable Heinz Tomato Ketchup, Coca-Cola and Ecover alternatives, the packaging would be used and reused more than two and a half million times a year.
Ken Murphy, Tesco Group CEO, said: “We are determined to tackle plastic waste and one of the ways we can help is by improving reuse options available to customers. Bringing Loop to our stores is a significant milestone in this journey.
“With 88 everyday products available, we’re giving customers a wide range of options and we’ll learn as much as we can from this to inform our future packaging plans.”
Tom Szaky, founder and CEO of Loop and TerraCycle, added: “The consumer reaction to Loop in these first Tesco stores will prove pivotal in refining the Loop offering and ultimately we hope to scale reuse across more stores and the number of product lines available.
“Tesco is the perfect partner to bring Loop to retail in the UK due to its commitment to sustainability, in combating plastics waste and in its operational scale as the UK’s biggest grocery retailer.”
Tesco has neem tackling the impact of plastic waste through its 4Rs strategy – to remove plastic where it can, reduce it where it can’t, reuse more and recycle what’s left.
The launch of Loop in Tesco stores follows a year-long online pilot, launched in July 2020, that allowed customers to order and return products in reusable packaging to and from their homes.
The full list of brands available in-store at launch are: Alberto Balsam, Bisto, BrewDog, Bulldog Skincare, Carex, Coca-Cola, Dr Will’s, Ecover, Fever-Tree, Finish, Good4U, Hardys, Mackays, Heinz, Meridian, Mud House, Naked Noodle, Original Source, Persil, Quaker Oats, Radox, Simple, Sipsmith and Tetley.
