Why a UK Supermarket Went Plastic Free 

After completing a 10 month trial, UK supermarket chain Morrison's, is now the first big British supermarket retailer to roll out a plastic-free fruit and vegetables department in its stores. Great work Morrison's!

 

It is reported that Morrison's trialled the new project in three of its UK stores, with sales of loose fruit and vegetables increasing by around 40%. Which begs the question, "How big of an issue is plastic waste to the retail industry's customers?". For years big box retailers have been very slow at acting on reducing plastic consumption, assuming that plastic packaging comes as a demand from customers, but what does this show us? Who knows, maybe this will spark some debate across big businesses to rethink whether or not plastic actually costs their businesses sales as well as the materials.

  

Drew Kirk, fruit and vegetable director at Morrison's, said: "Many of our customers would like the option of buying their fruit and veg loose. So we're creating an area of our green grocery with no plastic where they can pick as much or as little as they like. We're going back to using traditional green grocery and we hope customers appreciate the choice." By introducing this new initiative it will mean that Morrison's will produce 156 less tonnes of plastic waste each year, whilst also bringing down their costs which will ultimately be passed onto their customers.