Marks & Spencer trials refillable home-care products

The trial will allow customers to use refillable packaging for eight pre-fillled, own-brand homecare products including cleaning sprays, laundry detergents, fabric conditioners and washing up liquids.

The trial will initially be available at its stores in Bluewater and Stevenage, and will be followed by four more stores over the summer.

Customers will pay a £2 deposit for each refillable, reusable bottle, ranging from 500ml to 1l, which they will then receive as a voucher towards the next purchase when they return the emptied packaging to the store after use.

All returned bottles will then be cleaned and refilled, and returned to the store to be sold again.

M&S said customers are already responding well to the trial, with the most popular product, washing up liquid, almost equalling the non-refillable version in terms of sales.

The trial builds on M&S’ fill-your-own concept that covers food items such as pasta and rice. The format was launched in December 2019 and has since removed 35,000 pieces of packaging.

M&S Food head of sustainability Lucinda Langton said: “At M&S, we want to help our customers live more sustainably by transforming how we sell our products. We know they care deeply about reducing plastic so we’re taking a test and learn approach to find innovative solutions. 

“Our homecare trial builds on our refillable and packaging-free fill your own concept, and both are important parts of our strategy to reduce plastic and packaging. 

“Fill your own has already been hugely popular – showing there is high demand for refillable great value options – and if customers love M&S refillable just as much, we’ll be rolling it out to more stores.”

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