Asda has introduced its first refill store in Scotland featuring an extensive range of branded and own-brand products sold in loose format as part of its drive to reduce plastic and help customers shop more sustainability.
The supermarket has partnered with a host of the UK’s most popular household brands including Kellogg’s, Napolina, Yorkshire Tea and Unilever, to introduce over 60 products sold loose and unpackaged within specific aisles of its Toryglen store in Glasgow.
Customers visiting the store from today can use their own containers to buy unpackaged products such as pasta, rice, tea, coffee and cereals or alternatively buy a reusable container in store and use this. And thanks to the supermarket’s ‘Greener at Asda Price’ commitment, all unpackaged products will be the same price or cheaper than their packaged equivalents.
The launch of the Toryglen refill store is part of Asda’s strategy to remove 3bn pieces of single use plastic from its business by 2025 and follows the successful launch of its first refill store in Leeds last October.
The initiatives which are in store from today include:
- Prefilled Unilever products – Alberto Balsam shampoo, Radox shower gel, Simple hand soap and Persil laundry, which can be returned to the store when empty and deposited into a reverse vending machine. Customers get a £2 voucher for each shower, hair and soap bottle returned and £3 for laundry, while Unilever clean and reuse each bottle.
- A large range of cereals including Kellogg’s Coco Pops, Rice Krispies, Rice Krispies Multigrain, Cornflakes, Frosties, Granola, Special K and Crunchy Nut Cornflakes as well as a selection of Asda own brand products, Nestle’s Shredded Wheat Bitesize and Quaker Original Oats
- A range of Yorkshire Tea products including Original, Gold and Decaf teabags, as well as loose leaf tea
- Taylor’s of Harrogate Espresso, Lazy Sunday, Rich Italian, Hot Lava and Decaf coffee beans
- Twelve different varieties of own brand and Napolina pasta including fusilli, macaroni, rigatoni, green pea fusilli and red lentil penne as well as own brand and Tilda rice
- A CIF Eco-refill feature bay which includes a range of bathroom and kitchen cleaning products, allowing customers to take home refillable bottles and undiluted tablets to refill at home
- A P&G feature bay which will have refillable Aussie, Pantene, Head & Shoulders as well as Herbal Essences shampoos.
The implementation on refill in aisles is part of Asda’s test and learn approach, working with Toryglen customers to understand what works for them and taking steps to help make sustainable shopping as accessible as possible.
Susan Thomas, Director of Commercial Sustainability at Asda said: “We have chosen Scotland as the location for our second refill store because it is an important market for Asda and a place where we regularly receive constructive feedback from our customers. This feedback is very important to us as we refine our refill offering in stores and work towards a goal of making refill and reuse part of every shopping trip.
“With COP26 coming to Glasgow, there has certainly been an increase in interest in environmental issues across the country, so to see refill land in the host city and with such engaged customers is a really important moment for us.”
Asda recently announced that as well as Toryglen, it was also rolling out its refill proposition to Milton Keynes and York stores by the end of the year. The supermarket has 61 stores in Scotland and 631 across the UK.
