Reusable packaging pilot for online retail

Ocado Retail, a founding member of The UK Refill Coalition, is the first supermarket to trial a reusable packaging system for online sales via Ocado.com.

Launched in August, the first phase of the trial involves basic food products, while the second phase, scheduled for later in the year, will include items such as laundry detergent. Customers receive a unique container with their purchases, which they then return to the Ocado courier. Washing and logistics are managed by GoUnpackaged, which joined the coalition in 2020. Each container can replace up to five single-use plastic items and can be used over 60 times. If every UK household reused this container once a week, it could eliminate 1.4 billion single-use plastic items per year. The next step for Ocado Retail is to develop an industry standard for reusable online packaging to encourage its rapid adoption across the sector.