THE WHAT? Today will see the relaunch of UK supermarket Asda’s Middleton store as a pioneering sustainability store comprising a refill zone supported by Unilever and sustainable and circular economy experts Beauty Kitchen.  

THE DETAILS As a lead partner in Asda’s trial, Unilever will be piloting three different refill formats across seven of its household name brands.

The three formats comprise touch-free refill machines, in-home refills and self-serve containers – although beauty and personal care brands will only be on offer via the former.

THE WHY? Sebastian Munden, Executive Vice President of Unilever UK & Ireland explains, “I am very excited by the potential to test and learn from this fantastic partnership with Asda. It’s a great opportunity for us to find out, across seven of our leading brands, just how shoppers respond to using refillable and reusable packaging in-store. We are all committed to driving lasting change when it comes to plastic, but to do so we must create scalable solutions and make it as easy as possible for people to make sustainable choices.

“On our journey to halving our use of virgin plastic by 2025 we will have to be bold and totally rethink products and packaging, and we will only do that by testing a range of solutions with shoppers in real-life conditions.”