In-depth research is being co-funded with Innovate UK and will closely follow consumers as they plan at home, engage in-store, and decant and sore products back at home.
Marcus Gover, chief executive WRAP, said: “We’ve seen Pact members introducing some successful small-scale trials of refills, but we know we need more evidence to understand how these can be rolled out on a wider-scale and become part of our daily shopping habits. No-one has looked at re-use and refill behaviours on this scale before, and I’m delighted that we are able to do this in partnership with two of our founding UK Plastics Pact members, Asda and Unilever. This way of shopping needs to become a habit if we are going to make serious headway in eliminating unnecessary plastic packaging and meet the targets of The UK Plastics Pact.
“This study holds the answers to developing re-use and refill systems that meet the needs of shoppers who want to protect their environment, but also in a cost-effective and convenient way.”
Susan Thomas, Asda senior director, sustainable commercial activities, added: “We know that customers want to do their bit to reduce their carbon footprint and we are always working with them and our partners such as Unilever on new ways to make refill as hassle free and also as cost effective as possible. Removing price as a barrier to purchase is essential to persuade shoppers to embrace refill and our Greener at Asda Price promise ensures that all loose products are sold at the same price or less per kg than packaged equivalents. We are really pleased with the enthusiasm customers have shown in our four refill stores and this WRAP research will help us shape our next steps as we persuade more customers to embrace this form of shopping when they have been used to the convenience and ease of buying sealed products.”
Yvette Edwards, Unilever UK and Ireland communications and corporate affairs director said: “We need to make it as easy as possible for people to make sustainable choices every day. We believe reusable packaging could help reduce plastic waste at scale, but it is a totally new way of shopping requiring new behaviours at-home and in-store. To encourage and enable more people to trial our reusable products and to continue to buy them in the longer term, we are pleased to be working with our partners WRAP and Asda so we can test and learn together and gather insight on what will work most effectively.”
