Dive Brief:

• Giant Food said in an emailed announcement it’s planning to bring Loop, a reusable packaging program, to its stores in the greater Washington, D.C., area starting this fall.
• Loop allows customers to buy products in reusable and refillable containers that they can return when empty to a Loop Return Point at participating retailers. Once sanitized, the containers are then refilled with products and head back to retail partners’ shelves.
• The partnership comes at a time when grocers are seeking more reusable options for customers to cut down on waste. 

Dive Insight:

When Loop rolls out to Giant Food’s Washington, D.C.-area locations later this year, the Ahold Delhaize banner plans to have Loop-branded in-store displays to highlight the program to customers. 

Products customers can find as part of the program range from household items like shampoo, soap and disinfecting wipes to food items like BBQ sauce, granola and snack mixes. Loop works with a list of major food and beverage brands including Coca-Cola, Häagen-Dazs, Mars Wrigley, San Pellegrino and grocers’ private label lines. 

Giant Food told Grocery Dive that 10 stores will offer Loop in the greater Washington, D.C., area.

The announcement also noted that Loop works with Ecolab on its “advanced cleaning and sanitization” process for the containers. 

Developed by recycling company TerraCycle, Loop debuted in 2019 as an online store and extended into physical locations starting at the end of 2020 with Carrefour in Paris. The program is currently available in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Japan and France and plans to expand to Australia this year, according to its website. Its food retail partners include Kroger and U.K. supermarket chain Tesco. Restaurant chains, such as Burger King in the U.S. and McDonald’s in the U.K., have also teamed up with Loop. 

Kroger announced its partnership with Loop in 2019 and has expanded its work with the program in the years since. Earlier this year, Kroger launched the circular reuse program at 25 Fred Meyer stores in the Portland, Oregon, metropolitan area. 

The partnership news comes at a time when sustainability is becoming more top-of-mind for grocers and consumers. On the reusable front, several major retailers — Target, Walmart and CVS — are helping to lead the push for reusable bag options as a growing list of cities and states aim to curb their use.