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By Siddharth Cavale and Richa Naidu
LONDON/CHICAGO, Nov 1 (Reuters) - Under pressure to reduce
environmental waste from single-use containers, major consumer
companies including Procter & Gamble Co, Unilever Plc
and The Body Shop are rolling out more products in
refillable form.
P&G, with roughly $68 billion in annual revenue, said it has
invested millions in creating and testing refills for detergents
over the years and is now trying to push in to mainstream beauty
and body care refills – which are virtually unheard of.
It recently began offering some Olay face-cream jars with
refill pouches on Olay.com, telling Reuters it has plans to
expand the sales of the pouches in Europe early next year.
"We're learning on our legs so I don't know that we're in a
position to say, 'Hey, here's the magic to selling refills,'"
P&G spokesman Damon Jones said.
Beauty products retailer The Body Shop, owned by Brazil's
Natura Cosmeticos SA, says it plans to roll out
"refill stations" in its stores globally next year, allowing
shoppers to buy reusable metal containers to fill with Body Shop
shower gels or creams. The company had offered refills at its
stores in the early 1990s, but discontinued them in 2003, citing
a lack of consumer demand.
Unilever, which has set targets for reducing and recycling
plastic by 2025, in October announced the planned launch of
"refill sticks" of deodorants under its Dove line of personal
care products on Loopstore.com. The website, operated by
recycling company TerraCycle, offers consumers the chance to buy
some household products in ultra-durable packaging with refills
delivered to their doors, milkman-style.
Across the consumer goods industry, results for refillable
products have been mixed so far as many shoppers are far too set
in their ways to be easily weaned from living in a throwaway
culture. While refills are less expensive to purchase -
generally priced at 20% to 30% less per item than the containers
they are aimed to replenish, according to Unilever - shoppers
have so far, for the most part, failed to snap them up, the
companies said.
CONSUMER APATHY VS. CONSUMER PRESSURE
SC Johnson & Son Inc, marketer of Windex and Pledge, said
refills and concentrates so far have not played well with either
Americans or Europeans over the decade they have been offered,
with unit sales of such products pretty much flat. It pulled
concentrated refills for Shout stain remover off the shelves
because they were not selling very well.
In 2010, Unilever put 20-liter tanks to dispense detergents
in Walmart Inc's British supermarket chain Asda, and
provided flexible pouches for customers to refill. But with
leaky machines, safety and maintenance problems and the high
costs of upkeep, Unilever said the tests fell short of
expectations. Asda was also unhappy because the tanks occupied a
lot of space.
"None of them sell very well – it is a convenience issue,"
SC Johnson CEO Fisk Johnson told Reuters. Johnson said some
people find it painstaking to wash and refill bottles themselves
while others worry that smaller bottles filled with concentrates
are less "bang-for-your-buck" than the larger ones they have
used for years.
Still, the privately held company said it was expanding its
refill offerings this year to address concerns surrounding
plastic waste and is also testing refill stations for cleaning
products with UK retailer Waitrose, owned by Britain's John
Lewis. The Waitrose tests are showing the first signs
of progress in refill sales, Johnson said, and the company is
now thinking of expanding the project.
Even if consumers are comfortable using refills for some
household goods, it is more complicated to sell them for
products like Pantene shampoo and Olay creams, P&G spokesman
Jones said. For instance, with beauty products, the look and
feel of packaging is a big factor in creating and maintaining
customer loyalty, while delivering an environmental benefit, he
said.
Some shoppers say they want to buy refillable products, but
that the offerings are not available at many stores. Earlier
this year, dozens of consumers took to social media to urge The
Body Shop to bring back its refill counters.
“Refill, refill, refill!" Twitter user @JaiChipperfield said
on July 22, joining a thread in which several other shoppers
demanded the return of refills. "Seems to me that judging by
these comments your customers want to see the return of
refills," @JaiChipperfield added. "Me too, it would be brilliant
to see that return.”
The Body Shop eventually responded to those pleas.
"Now with the renewed focus on sustainability, we believe
it is the right time to return with it," Body Shop spokeswoman
Lucy Muircroft told Reuters this week.
(Reporting by Siddharth Cavale in London and Richa Naidu in
Chicago
Editing by Vanessa O'Connell and Matthew Lewis)
