An Asda store in Glasgow is to become the first in Scotland to trial the supermarket chain's new refill configuration.
The Toryglen store on Prospecthill Road in the southside will see the new refill offer put in place in August, featuring cereals, rice, pasta, tea, coffee, toiletry and laundry products sold in specific aisles.
The Glasgow supermarket will join three other stores in the UK to be added to the refill rollout by the end of the year as part of the next step in Asda's journey to help customers reduce, reuse or recycle their supermarket packaging.
All four will feature an increased range of new core products and partnerships with some of the UKs most popular household brands including Yorkshire Tea, an increased range of Kellogg’s cereals, new own-label and Nestle cereals, Napolina pasta, and Tilda rice.
The stores will also feature new 'prefilled' trials of Persil, Radox, Simple and Alberto Balsam products from Unilever in stainless steel reusable bottles that will be tested in two refill formats; refill on the go where shoppers can refill their bottle using a machine in-store and, in a global first for Unilever and Asda, return on the go where shoppers can pick up pre-filled bottles off the shelf and return them in-store once used.
The trial will see Asda partner with more household brands and engage with customers in different parts of the UK to understand how best to encourage refill participation amongst as many customers as possible.
Susan Thomas, Director of Commercial Sustainability at Asda said: “We know that reducing packaging waste matters to our customers and they have embraced the refill options available at the Middleton store, with many of the products available already exceeding expectations.
“Our ultimate goal is to make refill and reuse a part of every Asda shopping trip and to achieve this we have to make it easy, accessible and affordable for all our customers to shop this way. Middleton was a great introduction to how customers engage with refill products and we are now looking to accelerate these learnings by trialling different refill options in more stores to understand which aspects can potentially developed further.”
The rollout follows the successful launch of the Middleton refill zone last October, with several products outstripping packaged sales and many customers travelling from outside the local area to shop sustainably.
Pre-Loved, which was also initially trialled in Middleton is now in over 50 stores across the country, while the supermarket is also evaluating plans to roll-out increased customer recycling facilities to more stores later this year.
The announcement follows the publication of Asda’s first Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) report last month, which sets out its commitments to implementing a sustainable business strategy and outlines how the supermarket will make it easier and more affordable for customers to shop sustainably. It also reaffirmed its ‘Greener at Asda’ price promise – a commitment that loose and unwrapped products will not cost more than packaged equivalents.
