Out of the Loop?

Back in January last year I wrote about Loop, an online grocery shopping system offering goods in reusable, refillable containers that had launched in the US and France. This week Loop launched in the UK, finally giving me a chance to try it out for myself. It does seem to me utterly perverse that we use so much energy and resources to manufacture packaging that is used simply to transport the commodity we are actually interested in from where it is produced to where it is needed, and must then invest more resources and energy if we wish to mitigate the environmental damage it causes by being disposed of after its single use. Intuitively it feels bizarre that we can’t come up with a reusable alternative. In a global system optimised to minimise economic cost rather than environmental harm though it has proven surprisingly difficult to come up with something better. Loop is an exciting initial attempt to solve this problem.

I should stress that I see Loop as a step in the right direction, rather than the end product in itself. The range is limited, it is eye-wateringly expensive (more on this later) and I have concerns about the delivery model both in terms of ethics (many delivery drivers are on zero hour contracts without sick or holiday pay) and environmental cost (the majority of the carbon impact of home shopping is from last mile deliveries, which are hardest to schedule efficiently). The environmental benefit I hope to see coming from this is not so much this particular grocery home delivery service, but the optimised designs for standardised, reusable containers and systems for collecting, cleaning and redistributing them. In the long term I’d like to see these containers and systems become the default when food is sold, rather than being a feature of one high end delivery service. I  feel that if Loop is successful it will be a useful first step towards solving these design challenges and hopefully to seeing these solutions more broadly implemented, and for this reason I want to support it. I am rather less enthusiastic about the Loop business model itself.

My excitement about Loop itself lasted as long as it took to login and see the groceries on offer. At present the selection is extremely limited and, apart from Heinz ketchup, is mostly composed of bulk commodities rather than prepared foods. That at least can be expected to change as the scheme takes off, and I would expect more brands to come on board if it proves a success. What was more startling however was the prices, with almost every single item being at least twice as expensive as the equivalent product in Morrisons, my local supermarket, and no indication of any certification like organic or fairtrade that might explain this discrepancy.

Add on £1 or 50p deposit on each reusable container and £10 deposit for the tote bag on the initial order and the price quickly mounts up. And Loop is currently offering free shipping to promote its launch – I assume delivery charges will be introduced at some point.

Before I go any further I just want to stress that I am definitely not advocating anyone else do this – times are particularly hard right now, but we live in a desperately unequal society in which basic survival is a struggle for a lot of people even without a pandemic. There is a strand of environmentalism that tries to shame people for not making the most ethical lifestyle choices without recognising that many people simply don’t have the economic capacity to make choices full stop. Even given these prices I chose to place an order anyway, for two reasons: a) curiosity to learn more about how the system works, and b) to support what I see as the beginnings of a good idea that I hope will eventually lead to more sustainable packaging infrastructure. The first is reason is because for me personally as a bit of an eco geek, I derive value from interest in addition to the value I derive from the goods I receive. The second reason is a personal choice I make about where my money could do most good, and I personally feel the development of less wasteful distribution systems are worth funding. A friend commented that she’d rather buy the cheaper product and give the difference to a foodbank, and I’m glad we’re all deciding to use whatever spare capacity we have to support different ways of making the world better because hopefully more gets covered that way. I certainly couldn’t afford to use Loop for my regular weekly shop, and how sustainable the business model is will I suppose depend on how many people can genuinely afford to rely on it for staples rather than how many people are just shopping out of curiosity and to help create a buzz around the launch. But I’m not writing this post to encourage anyone else to shop with Loop, just to explain my own feelings about it.

With a mental apology to my bank balance, I placed an order.

The delivery arrived the next day. The first thing I noticed was that the tote bag it comes in was enormous. It does fold down quite neatly, but the camping mat-type assembly that is used to pack the products within it doesn’t. The tote folds to 50cm x 40cm x 10cm, the foam packing folds out to 110cm long. This along with the pricepoints is making me suspect that people like me who live in two room along with another person, a cat, and rather too many books are not the target market for this service, as we don’t have a great deal of space to play with to store it in. We also get an Abel and Cole vegetable box which comes in returnable packaging, and together they add up to taking up a fair amount of room. For the moment I’ve wedged it under the clothes airer, but that’s not a long term solution as we will eventually do a large enough wash to need the lowest rack. It’s also worth noting that the delivery isn’t 100% plastic free, as the tote comes sealed with a plastic tag, which may be a concern to some people, but personally I’m comfortable with this given how much single use packaging is being saved.

The Loop tote bag in my kitchen to demonstrate that is approximately the size of my oven. It is roughly cubic and has an address panel on top.

The inside of the tote, showing a foam rubber camping mat like object holding the containers in place.

The folded tote (50cm x 40cm x 10cm) and insert (110cm long)

The tote and inner wedged under the drying rack, alongside the cardboard vegetable box packaging.

The plastic tamper-evident tag, which reads “Put me back in the Loop Tote for recycling” and “Remettez-moi dans le Sac Loop afin d’être recyclé”

I was more impressed with the product packaging itself, with the majority of things coming in steel tins and the sugar coming in a glass jar. Product information is printed on what appear to be plastic labels rather than directly on the container, presumably to allow them to be peeled off when the container is returned instead of having to make sure every container is only used for exactly the same product. This interchangeability should simplify reuse. The tins are made out of a single material (I was concerned when i first saw the designs that I thought they had a glass window in them to show the product) which will also simplify recycling when they finally reach the end of their useful life, but that’s likely to not be for a very long time – I’ve already managed to knock one on the floor and it didn’t dent or deform in any way, important for a product that will hopefully be making a lot of journeys.

More disappointing was the fact that not only was each tin was sealed with a cellophane film, the jar of sugar was too. Given that there is already a tamper evident seal on the tote it seems odd that the products themselves also need to be sealed. I could see this would be necessary if these containers were being sold in physical shops to prevent theft or adulteration of the contents, but I would hope that some better solution could be designed for this. What was particularly surprising was that the jar of sugar was sealed with cellophane, as most jars I buy in shops aren’t sealed this way!

Update 29/7: something else I have been a bit disappointed with in the design of the tins is that without any sort of lip or screw top the lids of the tins come off really easily. I learned to be very careful to pick them up by the body after picking one up by the lid and having the body slide off and spill sunflower seeds all over the floor. Something to watch out for that could have been prevented with better design.

The containers – two stainless steel tins of different sizes, containing oats and rice, a n apparently standard glass bottle of vinegar and a glass jar of caster sugar, next to a can of Heinz baked beans for scale

One of the stainless steel tins showing the cellophane seal around the lid.

Finally it’s worth noting that all the products I bought, including the gluten free oats, have a disclaimer on the label reading “Packed in an environment which also handles nuts, peanuts, gluten, sesame seeds, soya, milk, egg, mustard and sulphured fruits.” I don’t know whether this is just said to cover themselves legally or whether there really is a serious risk of cross contamination in the packing plant, but either way Loop probably isn’t a good idea for people with serious allergies.

In conclusion, I really wanted to like Loop, and I do think it may well be the germ of an excellent idea, but in its current form it doesn’t really fit either my budget or my lifestyle. I’m much keener on the reusable packaging and its associated infrastructure than I am on the delivery service, but even that has some kinks that still need ironing out. I really hope Loop succeeds, but don’t think I’m the target market to help it do so. I spent some time after university doing a (truly awful) customer service job in a high end wholefood store in an affluent London suburb, and I suspect this service is pitched at the women (it was as I recall exclusively women) who would come in and spend £300 on a week’s worth of organic groceries then expect you to help carry them to their 4×4.

Controversially though I’m not sure that’s a bad thing. We have got into the very bad position of seeing ethical consumption as the be all and end all of environmentalism, and ethical consumption is exclusively available to the rich, but we have agency beyond and outside of consumption and capitalism. The main reaction I’ve seen to Loop’s launch on social media has actually been anger at the pricepoints, and I really hope that doesn’t tank the scheme because even if right now it is only for the yummy mummies of south west London, it is still contributing to building infrastructure and expertise on the logistics of running a system of interchangeable, reusable packaging.

That’s not to say that there’s nothing those of us who can’t afford Loop can do to reduce want to reduce single use packaging in the meantime. While I wouldn’t recommendleaving packaging at supermarket checkouts, we can all lobby supermarkets and brands to reduce superfluous packaging and make the packaging they have more easily recyclable or returnable. And smaller packaging free companies already exist – more and more zero waste shops are springing up around the country (for those in Exeter I recommend Zero Exeter,)  and scoop-and-weigh shops and markets stalls have been around since long before zero waste was a hashtag. There is even an online version, eco refill ,that delivers dry commodities in returnable fabric bags. Again for those in Devon, Rerooted produces plant milks in reusable glass bottles and delivers them in a electric van, a business model that is of course based on traditional milk man delivery that is available to those who drink dairy throughout the country. And many wholefood shops offer refills of products like Ecover, Bio-D or Faith in Nature even if they don’t offer food packaging-free.

Ultimately though I’m not sure that we can truly expect companies to lead in this space – they have to turn a profit to remain viable, and I suspect Loop’s startling prices are to offset the costs of establishing the container manufacturing, cleaning and transport infrastructure. And that is the problem in the end, that as companies aren’t required to pay for environmental externalities, for the cost of rectifying the environmental damage packaging manufacture creates and for responsibly disposing of packaging after it’s been used, using reusable packaging will be less profitable under the current economic regime. That’s where the rest of us come in – we need to be voting, lobbying, campaigning and protesting for an economic system that makes environmental responsibility the default, not a luxury add on, so that a move away from profligate waste of our planet’s resources becomes not only affordable to all of us, but recognised as the only sensible way to do things. And hopefully pilots like Loop will meet us there with the know how to make this a reality.

In conclusion, while I won’t be becoming a long term Loop customer, I wish them every success and remain excited by the reuse systems they’re developing. It’s easy to forget that even five years ago an idea like this probably couldn’t even have got off the ground, and I’m genuinely looking forward to a less wasteful future even if this might not be quite the form it takes.