The supermarket chain has introduced a way for its customers to shop that allows them to buy a wide range of food, drink, household and beauty products in “reusable and durable packaging.”
In partnership with global reusable packaging platform, Loop, customers in 10 large Tesco stores in the east of England will be able to buy products in reusable 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 brands such as Persil, Fever-Tree, Carex, Tetley Tea and BrewDog. Tesco has included 35 own-brand essentials in the range, such as pasta, rice, oil and sugar, with even more products set to be added to the range throughout the year.
Customers wishing to opt for reusable packaging can visit the Loop fixture in the store and add the products they want into their trolley as a part of their shop. The Loop range comes ready prefilled, so customers do not need to bring their own containers or refill themselves.
Prices for the contents of each item are comparable to the original. A fully 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.
Tesco said that the impact of switching just three items of the weekly shop “could be enormous”. The company stated: “If customers in the 10 stores switched their recyclable 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.”
The 10 stores to be included in the new initiative are:
- Milton Keynes Kingston
- Northampton South
- Cambridge Newmarket Road
- Wellingborough
- Milton Keynes Wolverton
- Evesham
- Leicester Hamilton
- Stratford Upon Avon
- Ashby De La Zouch
- Loughborough Rushes
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.”
