M&S plans to extend the Fill Your Own trial to a second store in Manchester City Centre in March following the trial in mid-December at its Hedge End Retail Park store in Southampton – offering packaging-free essentials including popular cereals, pasta, rice, lentils, confectionery, coffee, dried fruits and nuts.

Since the trial launched two months ago, 25 out of the 44 Fill Your Own products are selling higher volumes than the packaged alternatives, with customers buying over 2,600kg of product to date.

Research on the back of the trial reveals that over 75 per cent of consumers are consciously trying to reduce their use of plastic packaging, and refillable groceries are an increasingly popular solution to support this aim, with two thirds of consumers more likely to consider using them now compared to this time last year and around one in four (23 per cent) shoppers actively seeking retailers that offer this service.

The research findings also highlight that the main barrier to shopping refill and unpackaged groceries is the challenge of finding retailers that offer this service (38 per cent). This is followed by the need to carry containers – highlighted by one in five (18 per cent) – and the perception that unpackaged seems more expensive than packaged alternatives (14 per cent).

Paul Willgoss, director of food technology at M&S, commented: “Our Fill Your Own concept is one area we’re focusing on as part of our action to reduce plastic packaging and support our customers to reuse and recycle. As a completely new way of shopping, we’re keen to better understand refill across the entire store process from behind the scenes operations to working together with our customers to encourage behaviour change.”

M&S will continue testing the refill concept at its Hedge End and Manchester City Centre stores before considering a wider roll-out plan for the future.

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