REWE facilitates purchases of unpackaged fruits and vegetables. For this purpose, the company was the first large grocery retailer in Germany to introduce reusable carrying nets. With this hygienic and practical alternative to the plastic bag, customers will have the opportunity to lessen plastic waste.
"More and more people are looking for solutions on how to reduce plastic waste in everyday life. We see it as our duty to meet our customers' needs and continue to vigorously pursue our many plastic reduction initiatives," says Daniela Büchel, who, as a member of the REWE Markt GmbH management team, is also responsible for sustainability. "We are therefore very proud to be able to offer an alternative to the thin plastic bags in the fruit and vegetable assortment following the abolishment of the plastic carrier bags, with reusable fresh fruit carrying nets."
100 Rewe stores
The aforementioned launch was preceded by a seven-week test in October and November 2017, taking place in more than 100 REWE stores. On the basis of the test results, REWE worked for months on ways to further improve the reusable carrying nets, their practical appeal to customers and market employees as well as the form of its presentation in the market. Büchel: "With more than 3,300 REWE stores nationwide and with all their differences, the simultaneous introduction of multi-use carrying nets is a complex project that took time."
The reusable carrying nets will cost €1.49 for a two-pack.Anyone who chooses the reusable alternative can always use the nets for fruit and vegetable purchases in all REWE stores. When weighing at the cash register, the corresponding tare of the net is automatically subtracted from the weight of the goods. For this purpose, a barcode label is sewn to the net, which should therefore not be removed or made unrecognizable by the customer. In addition, it has another label with consumer information (including material and washing instructions), which is easily removed by tearing along the perforations.
Plastic reduction
REWE is working on a variety of initiatives to reduce plastic packaging and use resources. The most well-known measure so far is certainly the abolition of the plastic carrier bags at the cash registers of the supermarkets in 2016, where REWE was the industry leader. Others include "natural labeling", ie labeling avocados and sweet potatoes with lasers, the reduction of film thickness as well as the conversion of film packaging to adhesive tapes or adhesive labels for bananas.
Similarly, there is the use of grass based paper for apple boxes or of recycled plastic bottles for detergents and the like. This month, REWE was also the first retailer to introduce the "Share" label: the first bottled water bottles, entirely made from recycled plastic. They do not use up new resources like crude oil and so they close the cycle of production and recycling.
REWE, together with PENNY and toom Baumarkt, is combating disposable packaging, striving to remove all plastic disposable tableware from its range by 2020. This includes all plastic disposable plates, cups, bowls and cutlery, of which 146 million are sold annually within the REWE Group. Possible alternatives are products made from grass-based paper, palm leaf, wood or agricultural residues.
On top of that, in July all three companies announced they would remove plastic drinking straws from their ranges. This step will enable the REWE Group to dispense with the use of more than 42 million disposable plastic straws per year. From the spring of 2019 onwards, the Group will offer alternatives made of FSC/PEFC-certified paper, wheatgrass or stainless steel.
Source: REWE