Circular online grocer Weekly.Shop has launched a sister brand – Refill.Shop – which sends food via post in bags, which are decanted and returned by customers in the post to be washed, relabelled and reused.
The brand is “a fully closed-loop system with zero waste” and runs on the same reuse infrastructure as Weekly.Shop, at its hub in Battersea, London.
While Weekly.Shop involves delivery drivers collecting empty containers when they drop off the next order, customers return the food-safe, BPA and PVC-free bags and clips via a provided freepost envelope.
“Refill.Shop is built to make reusables as easy and attractive as single-use, this model finally makes nationwide closed-loop delivery possible and accessible to experienced refillers and first timers alike,” co-founder and CEO Paul Cooke told The Grocer.
The Refill.Shop range is currently at around 150 SKUs including variants, but the company is expecting it to exceed 400 SKUs soon. More pantry staples, homecare and personal care lines will be among the first to be added, along with refills for offices and workplaces. Fresh food is not presently available, though it is expected to join the range in time.
The company is testing various materials for the bags in “real-world conditions” and expects the “most durable to go through hundreds of cycles”. Each bag, clip and outer is laser-marked with a unique QR code for tracking.
“What matters most is keeping that return loop strong and preventing bags from being thrown away or kept indefinitely,” Cooke said.
The sister brand was born out of research and development work by the company into lighter alternatives to glass jars. The development of washable, food-safe plastic bags “opened the door to a new nationwide model” Cooke explained.
Refill.Shop is initially targeting consumers “who already believe in reuse and want the best way to do it” but is seeking to “appeal to a much broader audience too”.
“Our goal is to make reusables as effortless as single-use, so customers can get the products they love in packaging that comes back, gets cleaned, and goes again,” Cooke said. “We expect most customers to use Refill.Shop as their go-to for pantry, home and personal care essentials, the ‘always buy’ of their shopping that simply works better this way.”
Refillables have so far struggled to take hold in UK grocery. Earlier this year, Aldi ended its in-store refillable trial with The Refill Coalition, a coalition that saw Sainsbury’s, Morrisons, Lidl, M&S and Waitrose come and go as supporters by the time Aldi launched its in-store pilot in Solihull in 2023.
Ocado’s online version of the concept, using standardised containers that are handed back to delivery drivers when empty, is the only consumer-facing remnant of the coalition’s work.
Tesco quietly wound up its reusable packaging trial with eco-company Loop in 2022, after admitting such initiatives would require a major consumer mind-shift before they can be rolled out at scale. The supermarket launched refillable aisles featuring 88 branded and own-label products in reusable and durable packaging in 10 stores in 2021.
Such schemes “struggled because they asked mainstream shoppers to do extra work, returning containers to stores, dealing with deposits and logistics”, Cooke said.
By comparison, “Refill.Shop targets refillers with an easy way to close the loop – just drop the empties in the post, and we do the rest. We think there’s a gap for a premium, design-led refill service that’s genuinely easy.”
No comments yet