Food & Drink
18 May 2025
Nine of the UK’s largest grocery retailers, with support from UK governments and WRAP, have issued a joint Statement of Intent to explore how reusable packaging could be implemented across their stores and online.
The plan is to offer a system that makes it easy to shop for ‘prefilled’ items in stores and online.
The goal is to achieve a standardised in-store and online system to reduce the amount of single-use packaging put on the market, and give shoppers a better experience beyond single-use packaging.
The announcement follows data from GoUnpackaged showing that moving to just 30% reuse could deliver huge financial and environmental benefits for the UK.
These include a £136 million annual saving for producers in packaging EPR costs on products in scope and a 95% reduction in CO2e emissions, for the products in scope.
‘We, the grocery retailers of the UK (Aldi, Asda, Co-op, Lidl GB, Morrisons, Ocado Retail, Sainsbury’s, Tesco and Waitrose) supported by Innovate UK, WRAP and DEFRA, DAERA, Scottish Government and Welsh Government have a common ambition to work together to enable increased consumer adoption and participation in a circular economy by exploring how reusable packaging (with a focus on prefill) could be implemented through interoperable systems.
‘Recognising the challenges to achieving this at scale, we intend to collaborate on an approach that has the potential to deliver a reduction in single use packaging by 2030.’
UK Plastics Pact Grocery retailer statement of intent
Prefilled packaging is designed to be filled, used, returned and refilled multiple times within a supply chain as a sales unit.
With learnings from previous localised pilots, the group will consider a more co-ordinated approach and solution where reusable packaging (prefill) is possible and easy to use wherever you shop.
Driven by a shared understanding that change at scale only happens when everyone moves together, WRAP will act as secretariat for the group in aligning goals, infrastructure and citizen needs.
The next stage will be a September webinar for brands, manufactures and suppliers to engage with the Reuse Packaging Partnership.
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