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Stores And Refills: What Do Large Prefill Trials Tell Us?


In recent years, large retailers have been experimenting with reuse models.


For stores, there are two main reuse options: instore refill, where consumers bring an empty container to the store to fill themselves; or prefill, where consumers drop off an empty and collect a ready filled replacement.


Instore refills have been around a while and can work well for some products, but there are significant limitations. They are messy and take a lot of maintenance. They also take a lot of space and the brand assortment available is very limited, meaning they can never be a solution for most products.


For this reason, retailers are starting to focus on prefill, which in principle could bring all the same convenience that consumers are used to, but within a reuse solution.


Recent pilots show that while prefill looks to have great potential, it’s a long way from being a viable option.


In 2020, Asda provided a Refill Zone in one of its stores with over 30 product lines, with 50 new lines added in July 2021. It worked with Unilever to make available seven of its brands in three different refill formats and in 2021 extended the trial to include some prefilled Unilever-branded laundry and personal care products[1].


In 2021, Tesco worked with Loop to make available over 50 brands and 35 of its own-label products in reusable packaging. Shoppers paid a 20p-£1 deposit on packaging that was refunded on return to a store or via one of 2,500 DPD collection points.


Results of these pilots have been mixed.


Unfortunately, much of the important operational and economic findings are siloed within the participating companies and not made public, but some published snippets show the difficulties faced.


Tesco published learnings from its nine-month reusable packaging trial. In its summary public report[2], Tesco's puts a brave face and upbeat spin on findings, but it's clear it sees many challenges with the prefill model.


In a blog entry[3], Giles Bolton, Responsible Sourcing Director of Tesco, said:


What’s clear from our trial is that a prefill model of reuse has strong potential and can be set up to offer customers the ease and convenience they expect. While it is very disruptive to usual ways of working, we’ve also seen it’s possible to adapt supply chains working in partnership with suppliers to maintain the quality and availability that customers rightly demand.


But there’s still much more to do. Specifically, work is needed to encourage a cultural and behavioural shift from customers. Reuse represents a radical change in the shopping experience and while customers support the environmental principle, industry, policymakers and supply chains will need to work hard and work collectively to support and incentivise customers to adopt new shopping behaviours, while ensuring they don’t come at a cost to shoppers.


In its report, Tesco added that although shoppers were happy to buy items in reusable packaging, reusable packaging often costs more to produce ‘per unit’ than disposable packaging, and more concerningly (and with our emphasis), that the combined cost of cleaning and filling the packaging is sometimes more than the cost of the product inside the packaging. For a market that runs on thin margins, this is clearly unsustainable.


Commentators were more damning. An article in The Grocer[4] said…


“…the initiative’s demise highlights the perils of touting reusable packaging as the only ‘sustainable’ solution.

In fact, while the reusability of packaging is undoubtedly an important measure of sustainability, it’s not the silver bullet it’s often made out to be”


A separate article[5] quoted Loop CEO and founder Tom Szaky, who said a viable prefill system needs 1,000 stores in any given region “to reach profitability for Loop and have compelling economics for brands and retailers”.


He didn't specify what qualifies as a store, but thus far trials are focused on supermarkets, and this would mean enrolling over 8% of the 12,000 supermarkets in the UK. If there was a regional focus, the percent enrolment rate would need to be much higher. This is doable, but it is a tall order and would require close participation amongst competitors to address such a complex problem.


Asda and Unilever did not provide detailed commentary on the economics and viability of prefill. Instead, their public statements and report[6] covered shopper attitudes to prefill and ways to better engage consumers.


That said, our conversations with senior managers at Unilever underscore the difficulties they see with the economics of the prefill model. It could work at scale but getting there will be hard.


To advance understanding we need greater openness about results attained thus far along with policy changes to support further efforts. Specifically on policy we need legislation to support reuse minimums, and the financial support of a plastic tax and meaningful Extended Producer Responsibility.


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