The retail giant has today opened its new sustainability trial store and unveiled a new plastics reduction strategy with the promise that customers will not pay more for greener options.
The store is designed to help shoppers reduce, reuse and recycle with ease and Asda estimates the numerous initiatives being trialled in Middleton will save one million pieces of plastic per year. The new store includes a number of features, including: 15 refill stations that offer customers a selection of more than 30 household staples sold in refillable format.
Products include a selection of Kellogg’s cereals, PG Tips tea bags, Quaker Oats, Lavazza and Taylors of Harrogate coffee beans, Vimto and Asda own rice and pasta. Other popular brands including Persil, Simple and Radox are all sold in a refillable format. As well as this, 53 fresh produce lines have been introduced in loose and unwrapped formats and removal of the outer plastic wrapping on popular canned multipacks including beans and soups.
Other facilities that have been implemented at the store include a recycling station for items that are difficult to recycle in other kerbside collection; sustainable fashion lines through George; and a partnership with Pre-Loved, a vintage wholesaler who will be selling bespoke vintage clothing from well-known brands.
The Middleton store will be used to test and learn which elements of its new offering are most appealing to customers, with the intention being to roll out the concept to more locations in 2021. Asda also intends to encourage customers to shop sustainability by implementing the ‘Greener at Asda Price’, a national price promise that loose and unwrapped products will not cost more than wrapped equivalents.
