Ocado Retail & UK Refill Coalition Launch First Major Online Reusable Packaging Scheme to Reduce Single-Use Plastics

On June 26, the annual Environmental Packaging Awards were held at Park Plaza Victoria in London. Now in their second year, the Awards celebrate innovations and individuals making a real impact on sustainability.

The awards programme recognises those who demonstrate a strong understanding of the environmental impact of packaging, while also recognising its vital role in protecting products.

This year’s winning solution – a reusable bulk vessel by the Refill Coalition - has been developed to deliver refills at scale for key food staples (e.g., cereals and pasta) and household products (e.g., cleaning and personal care products), removing single-use plastic packaging when moving goods from supplier to customer and driving efficiencies.

The Refill Coalition was founded in 2020, and comprises GoUnpackaged, the UK’s leading reuse & refill experts, alongside Ocado Retail, Aldi UK, the supply chain solutions company CHEP and is supported by InnovateUK.

The coalition’s goal is to create a sustainable open-source refillable solution for UK retail to reduce primary packaging waste. Since October 2023, Aldi UK has trialled the Refill Coalition’s vessel-based in-store refill solution in two stores and is showing strong results. Across the trial stores, the loose products available via the refill solution are contributing up to 30% of sales within their categories, alongside their single-use packaged versions.

Refills are seen as a key component in tackling single-use plastic packaging waste. If every household in the UK refilled just one item per week, this would eliminate over 1.4 billion items of single-use packaging per year.

The Refill Coalition made the following statement: "We are delighted to have our work developing a scalable solution for refills recognised with this prestigious award. As a Coalition we share the mutual objective of reducing single-use plastic packaging and believe that the solution we have developed presents a landmark opportunity for us to make a step change in the commercialisation of reusable packaging, which we know can play a significant role in the reduction of single-use plastic packaging.”