The Refill Coalition, a major collaborative refillable packaging initiative, has won the Ambient Food Award category in the Environmental Packaging Awards 2024. The Coalition, founded in 2020, comprises leading reuse and refill experts GoUnpackaged, Ocado Retail, Aldi UK, and supply chain solutions company CHEP.
Now in their second year, the Environmental Packaging Awards celebrate innovations and individuals making a real impact on packaging sustainability. The Refill Coalition has won the award for its ‘universal’ reusable bulk container, which is designed to deliver refills at scale for key food staples (e.g. cereals and pasta) and household products (e.g. cleaning and personal care products).
As well as reducing single-use plastic packaging at source, the solution allows retailers to offer their customers convenient refill options while driving efficiencies through the supply chain. Aldi UK has been trialling the solution in two stores since October 2023 and is showing strong results.
The Refill Coalition is one of the major projects supported by UK Research & Innovation’s Smart Sustainable Plastic Packaging (SSPP) Challenge, delivered by Innovate UK.
“It is hugely encouraging to see this ground-breaking initiative getting recognition. Developing cost effective, scalable refillable packaging solutions is key to tackling single-use plastic packaging waste,” says Paul Davidson, director of the SSPP Challenge.
The Refill Coalition says: “We are delighted to have our work developing a scalable solution for refills recognised with this prestigious award. As a Coalition we share the mutual objective of reducing single-use plastic packaging and believe that the solution we have developed presents a landmark opportunity for us to make a step change in the commercialisation of reusable packaging, which we know can play a significant role in the reduction of single-use plastic packaging.”
According to the Refill Coalition, if every household in the UK refilled just one item per week, this would eliminate over 1.4 billion items of single-use packaging per year (based on 2022 ONS figure of 28.2 million households in the UK).
