Wwith thick black frames and hidden cameras, the glasses seem designed for espionage or the metaverse, but instead the eye-catching headgear is deployed to get inside shoppers’ heads as part of an effort to cut plastic packaging from the weekly grocery store.
It’s an unlikely scene. Attached to the glasses, a copper is put around a tail Waitrose production department by a researcher carrying a large tablet that displays live footage of them picking up mundane things like potatoes, apples and bananas.
Although not cinematic, the film clips will be analyzed by experts looking at the in-store messages that are most effective in getting people to switch from buying pre-packaged fruit and vegetables to picking and weighing their own .
The store in Thatcham, Berkshire, is being used to see if mandates such as “same quality, no packaging” and “perfectly packaged by nature” can help break a cycle that contributes to British households using almost 100 billion pieces of plastic packaging a year throw away year.
Shoppers have become used to the “convenience” of plastic packaging, explains Joanna Linley of the anti-waste charity Wrap, which helped set up the trial. “Regardless of what we say, and what we know we should do, realistically when we go into a store and grab a bag of something, it’s much easier and more convenient than buying something loose.”
In 2018 UK supermarkets and food companies voluntary targets entered to cut plastic packaging over the next seven years. The goals of the UK Plastics Pact – led by Wrap, whose work helps shape the government’s policy on sustainability issues – include 30% of all fresh produce being sold loose by 2025.
However, it looks like the industry will miss this target. A progress report published late last yearsaid that in 2022 an average of 19.4% of fresh produce sales were loose, with the proportion per retailer varying from 2% to 30%.
There is compelling reasons to “opt out”. Fresh fruit and vegetables account for more food waste than anything else we buy, with 1.6 million tonnes – worth almost £4bn – thrown away every year. Removing the packaging should mean less plastic and food waste because households will be able to buy closer to the right amount.
But at the moment, supermarkets mainly offer prepackaged products because that’s what sells, and people buy them because they’re on the shelves. In 2019, Iceland abandoned a trial with loose products after it led to a 30% drop in sales. “I certainly can’t justify investing millions in new cabinets and scales to offer something our customers don’t want to buy,” his boss Richard Walker said at the time.
Part of the reason packaging keeps sales higher is that shoppers pay more when they buy a kilogram bag of spuds instead of just the three or four they need. However, many also seem to prefer the convenience and perceived hygiene benefits of pre-priced packs.
A recent Wrap study on the topic included some telling customer testimonials. One said: “I do a serious job and I have a lot of things to think about… so when I go to Aldi I don’t want to have a debate about what I’m doing.” Others said they were put off by the thought of “other people touching the fruit” or simply “liked the convenience” of picking up a package.
The study concluded that it was not so simple to ask people or supermarkets to become the norm again. “We will need interventions that work throughout the system, shifting the environments, incentives and norms that drive the buying and selling of prepackaged fruit and vegetables,” it said.
“The biggest thing we need is for people to pick loose when it’s available,” Linley continues. “It’s obviously great to ask the retailers to sell more loosely, but if people don’t choose that, there’s a real disconnect.”
Waitrose currently sells around 100 loose products (about 16% of its range) and has not changed the level of choice for the trial. The retailer is committed to offering more loose fruit and vegetables in store, says Catherine Loader, its sustainability manager, but the reality is complicated. There is no point in removing packaging if it means that more is needed in the supply chain, for example.
“One of the biggest challenges is that customers pick up items, go to the scales, and only then realize how much they are actually going to pay,” says Loader. “That’s something we’ve been working on … how do we move to per-piece pricing, so that’s very clear.”
As well as eye-tracking data which will create a “heat map” of the most effective signage, another 300 Waitrose shoppers – split across Thatcham and a “control” store – will be surveyed. The results will be shared with competing supermarkets.
Rachel Green, who stopped by the store during her lunch break, didn’t notice the signs but was already shopping anyway. “I think it’s quite nice that you can actually touch what you buy,” she says. “I’ll go home and wash it anyway.”
Another shopper, who just recycled a bag of soft plastic packaging in the store, says she “can’t be bothered fumbling to count out potatoes” as she needs a lot, and will pay more for the convenience of to pick up a bag. Potatoes are the UK’s most wasted food with almost 3m thrown away every day.
Faced with the same plastic problem countries like France passed laws prohibiting packaging on many products and it has been reported that the UK government is considering introducing new guidelines. Tesco, the UK’s biggest supermarket, said it would welcome “effective government intervention on the removal of product packaging”.
“This should start with products that we think are most feasible – for example, where multiple retailers share the same supplier,” Tesco chief product officer Ashwin Prasad wrote in his 2023. packaging update report. “Government intervention will ensure that change is made at scale and create a level playing field – where packaging changes will not put any single retailer at a competitive disadvantage.”
Asked about reports of a packaging ban, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs says only that it is “leading the global effort to reduce food waste with a commitment to halve it by 2030” and “continued to use Wrap on their to support campaigns”.
Wrap is currently undertaking a global policy review of legislation in this area and says: “Any policy (ban or otherwise) considered should be developed in consultation with industry to avoid any negative unintended consequences. No changes in the law have been announced at this time.”
