The supermarket has been trialling the zero-waste service for a year via home delivery 

Food giant Tesco has partnered with global reuse platform Loop to introduce waste-free packaging into ten of their stores this month. The reusable containers can be cleaned, refilled and used again and again before eventually being recycled at the end of their life.

Customers will be able to buy 88 products in reusable packaging, which they can return to the store on their next shop. Well-known brands including Bisto, Brewdog, Heinz, Persil and Quaker Oats are on offer in the Loop reuse station, plus 35 Tesco own brand essentials.

The alternative to single-use packaging was piloted with home delivery since July 2020 and will now be available in the following ten stores:

• Leicester Hamilton
• Stratford Upon Avon
• Ashby De La Zouch
• Loughborough Rushes
• Milton Keynes Kingston
• Northampton South
• Cambridge Newmarket Road
• Wellingborough
• MK Wolverton
• Evesham

How it Works

Customers can buy products from the Loop area in store and pay as normal, plus a small deposit. The deposit is refunded via the Loop deposit app when the packaging is later returned. The durable containers are cleaned and refilled and can be reused many times.

Loop works with brands and manufacturers to enable refillable versions of their conventional single-use products. They partner with leading retailers to embed these offerings into their online eCommerce and physical retail stores. The platform aims to make reuse as convenient and accessible as single use.

The partnership with Loop differs to zero-waste shops which ask customers to bring their own containers to fill up from their refill stations.

Tesco estimates that if customers in the 10 selected stores switched their recyclable tomato ketchup, cola and washing up liquid bottles to the reusable Loop alternatives, the packaging would be used and reused more than two and a half million times a year. The supermarket says their next step is to scale up the service.

Tesco’s partnership with Loop is a part of the supermarket’s 4Rs packaging strategy – remove, reduce, reuse and recycle – to tackle the impact of plastic.