In 2022, reuse and refill packaging has re-emerged as an increasingly popular option for brand owners looking to investigate alternative methods to cut their consumption of single-use plastics. John Nelson, editor at Smithers, reviews what this means for the industry.
The market outlook for the reuse and refill segment, and its potential to supplement the global trend for more sustainable packaging, is profiled in The Future of Refillable and Reusable Packaging to 2027, the latest expert study from leading consultancy for the paper, print and packaging industry, Smithers.
Established and growth markets
Smithers’ in-depth analysis covers all elements of this market, including the emergence of new consumer models. Total value in re-use/refill packaging will reach at $42.0 billion in 2022, and is forecast to grow 5.0% year-on-year across 2022-27 to $53.5 billion.
This is supporting wider use of closed loop glass bottle deposit recovery for beverages, where recovered material is either rendered down into glass cullet, or cleaned and refilled. These established systems are the largest segment of the market, accounting for 69% of the world market by value in 2022. This will be supplemented by organic expansion in another mature segment – re-use and refill packs for transit and industrial shipping.
The greatest potential, however, lies in four other segments – food, home care, non-glass beverages, and personal care & cosmetics – all of which have hitherto made very limited use of the concept. Value for re-use and refill concepts in these four segments is forecast to grow at over 30% year-on-year through to 2027. Combined these will grow from $669 million in 2022, to over $3 billion in 2027.
This will involve designing more durable packaging bases for consumers that can undergo multiple re-use cycles, as well as lightweight refill units for in-store purchase or at-home delivery.
Sustainability is the motivator, but customer convenience is paramount if re-use packaging is to gain market traction. Smithers has identified four distinct operations models for re-use and refill packaging. Each has distinct advantages depending on the end-use market, and offer different levels of convenience to the consumer.
Refill-at-home: the consumer refills the base unit themselves with a refill pack or sachet. These can be bought in store, or delivered to their home, often via a subscription service
Return-from-home: re-usable packaging is collected from the consumer’s home by a dedicated third-party pick-up service
Refill-in-store: the consumer owns a reusable container – normally a bottle – that he or she can refill at participating retailers
Return-in-store: the consumer takes re-use formats back to the point-of-purchase or drop off point after use, often combined with financial deposit return payments.
Home care
The home care segment is keen to transition to a more sustainable future. Several options available in the wider market are unsuitable in home care, because cleaning chemicals require secure, and sometimes tamperproof, plastic packs.
For this reason, home care lines have moved quickly to embrace refill-at-home and refill-in-store models. Unilever reports positive results from a trial installation of in-store refill stations across the UK. For refill-in-store standard polymer format bottles can endure several refilling cycles, and retailers are keen to assign floor space to equipment that also demonstrates their commitment to a greener future.
Re-use packaging is particularly being explored by cleaning brands that make have placed sustainability at the heart of their marketing message. One such brand in Australia is Macro Whole Living [a brand owned by Woolworths Group]. It has conducted a trail installation at a local [Double Bay, NSW] branch of Woolworths’ offering sales of its eight product range of eco-formulated laundry liquid, a multi-purpose surface cleaner, and dishwashing detergent. Macro-branded refillable bottles are dispensed by the machine, in what the company describes as a natural extension of its ethos to help ‘consumers make better choices.’
For refill-at-home, there are multiple lightweight refills available, as well as a flourishing eco-conscious cleaning subscription market online. Refills are typically polymer pouches, with many being sold as concentrates that the consumer dilutes at home – further reducing weight.
Food packaging
As the largest segment of the consumer packaging market food has the greatest potential, but also some of the greatest challenges. These include the need for safety, for example to protect against cross contaminants with allergens; and the sheer variety of different goods.
Food sales in refillable and reusable packaging were virtually non-existent in 2017, but have since grown rapidly. It is the result of successful trials and pilot schemes by major consumer packaged food producers in conjunction with large retail stores around the world. The successful trials are expected to be rolled out across many more retail stores over the five years to 2027 resulting in growing sales of refillable and reusable food packaging around the world.
Refill-in-store is emerging as the most popular option here. It is especially suited to dry goods and staples, such as dried fruit and nuts, dried soup, dehydrated cooking sauces, rice, pasta, pulses, herbs, spices, sugar, teas, flour and breakfast cereals.
Non-glass beverage
Major beverage brands are looking to extend the use of refill-in-store and return-in-store options from glass to PET, and are emphasising developing markets. In South Africa, Coca-Cola has led with the introduction of 2- and 1.5-litre RefPET plastic bottles that can be refilled up to 14 times.
In Latin America the company also reports consumers embracing its Universal Bottle scheme, which rewards them with a discount on their next purchase if they return the empty bottle. First introduced in Brazil, the scheme is now available in Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Guatemala, and Panama. The collected bottles are cleaned and relabelled at Coca-Cola own facilities, a model that it reports allows a single container to be used up to 25 times.
Personal care
There are multiple drivers that are pushing personal care and cosmetics brand to adopt refill-at-home models. There is a clear resonance between clean beauty messaging and more sustainable packaging, now backed by commitments to cut single-use plastics. Simultaneously the segment has seen a surge in e-commerce subscription services, to support repeat refill sales.
A typical refill concept for personal care involves an ergonomically designed metal or durable plastic base pack that can be refilled and re-used multiple times. The refills are lightweight flexible pouches identical in volume to the original product, which consumers can swap into the base unit.
Skin care and hair care lines are already pioneering this trend, while colour cosmetics is poised to join them, with several reuse lipstick concepts debuting in 2022.
This article was first published in the September-October 2022 print issue of PKN Packaging News, p12.
