Asda has tapped into customers’ desire to save the planet - Ros Snowdon

You could forgive the Leeds-based grocer for being too busy to have time to think about the environment, but its new trial sustainability store in Middleton in Leeds is a game changer.

Asda has tapped into customers’ desire to reduce plastic waste and save the planet, whilst at the same time, it has promised customers they won’t pay a penny more for going green.

You know it’s on to something serious when major household names such as PG Tips, Vimto, Kellogg’s, Radox and Persil sign up to the trial.

It’s also impressive that Asda has chosen its home turf for the trial. There were always raised eyebrows when Morrisons, when under former management, chose London as its launch pad for new developments.

Asda said it gets a lot of foot traffic at its Middleton store, with many customers shopping every day so the firm can get very useful feedback by using it as its trial store.

In addition, many older shoppers can’t access out of town recycling facilities or buy huge bulk packs, so a lot of the trial store’s solutions fit their needs to buy smaller amounts and reduce the amount of rubbish they need to process at home.

A spokesperson for Asda said: “We wanted a typical Asda store with a typical customer demographic and felt Middleton fits that bill.

“We felt that if we use Middleton as the sustainable store and it works there, we can be confident it should work more broadly if rolled out further.”

Asda opened the trial store on Tuesday, partnering with the UK’s biggest brands to test the latest innovations to tackle plastic pollution.

It has promised customers that its new plastics reduction strategy means they will not pay more for greener options.

From refillable solutions to a host of recycling initiatives, the firm said it will help customers to reduce, re-use and recycle.

Asda estimates the numerous initiatives being trialed in Middleton will save a million pieces of plastic per year.

The supermarket chain will use the Middleton store to test and learn which elements of its new offer appeal most to customers and can be developed at scale to be potentially rolled out to more locations in 2021.

To encourage customers to shop sustainably, the supermarket has also launched ‘Greener at Asda Price’, a national price promise that loose and unwrapped products will not cost more than wrapped items.

The new store includes 15 huge refill stations offering customers a selection of more than 30 household staples sold in refillable format. Products include a selection of different Kellogg’s cereals, PG Tips tea bags, Quaker Oats, Lavazza and Taylors of Harrogate coffee beans, Vimto cordial and Asda’s own brand rice and pasta.

The refill zone also includes popular brands of shampoo, conditioner, Persil laundry detergent, hand wash and shower gel from Unilever brands such as Simple and Radox sold in refillable format, which is a retail first.

Over 50 fresh produce lines will be sold in loose and unwrapped format including 29 new lines such as cauliflowers, mushrooms, apples, cabbages and baby plum tomatoes.

It will supply recycling facilities for items that are difficult to recycle in kerbside collections such as crisp and biscuit packets, plastic toys, cosmetic containers and toothpaste tubes.

Asda said it recognises that sustainable shopping must be affordable and accessible to all customers.

This is a really important move by Asda and it is leading the charge on eco-friendly shopping. This is an exciting new development that chimes with customers’ desire to go greener in the way they shop and the beauty of it is that shoppers can help save the planet and won’t have to pay extra to do it.

This move will put Asda, Middleton and Leeds on the map.