Asda’s Middleton supermarket in Leeds has been relaunched as a pioneering flagship sustainability store featuring a Refill Zone supported by Beauty Kitchen and Unilever.
Unilever is providing seven of its brands for the initiative which will trial three different refill formats in the retailer:
- Touch-free Refill Machines (developed by Beauty Kitchen) dispense beauty and personal care products in reusable aluminium or stainless steel bottles via three machines using the Return, Refill, Repeat premise
- In-home Cif eco-refills provide shoppers with an entire bay dedicated to the ten times concentrated refill for sprays which allow them to use a bottle for life
- Self-serve containers – PG Tips and Pukka teas will be available through self-serve containers or ‘hoppers’ for loose tea and tongs to self-dispense fully biodegradable teabags. Shoppers will be able to take their own reusable container into store or buy one there.
This exciting partnership to power Refill Stations is a pivotal point in creating a sustainable future and instilling a reuse mindset
Commenting on the trial, Beauty Kitchen founder and sustainability expert Jo Chidley says: “The need to act on the plastic pollution crisis is urgent and focusing consumer behaviour on sustainability and cradle to cradle practise is a vital part of the solution. This exciting partnership to power Refill Stations is a pivotal point in creating a sustainable future and instilling a reuse mindset.”
“It’s a great opportunity for us to find out, across seven of our leading brands, just how shoppers respond to using refillable and reusable packaging in-store,” adds Sebastian Munden, executive VP of Unilever UK & Ireland. “We are all committed to driving lasting change when it comes to plastic, but to do so we must create scalable solutions and make it as easy as possible for people to make sustainable choices. On our journey to halving our use of virgin plastic by 2025 we will have to be bold and totally rethink products and packaging, and we will only do that by testing a range of solutions with shoppers in real-life conditions.”
The trial is part of Unilever UK & Ireland’s #GetPlasticWise campaign to accelerate progress towards the company’s global 2025 plastic targets.
