Waitrose in Abingdon had all the new parts of the store reopened from today.
This is the third Waitrose store in Oxfordshire to trial ‘Unpacked’ after Oxford’s Botley Road, which has been running for a few months, and Wallingford, which is very recent. Customers can take and weigh their own containers and refill them in the “Refillable” zone with: lentils, rice and pasta, dried fruit, breakfast cereals, seeds etc. . There are also wines and beers on tap; unpacked frozen fruits; coffee beans for grinding in-store; and Ecover detergents and washing liquids. The aim is to give people the choice to buy things with less disposable packaging. You can still buy most of these products in wrappers elsewhere in the store.
Other changes included reconfigured areas of shelving; the cafe area is walled off from the store and called Waite & Rose; and outside are some new cash machines.
I did not notice a big change in the unwrapped range in the fruit and vegetables section. That may be to come. The Unwrapped trial in Oxford had a lot more unwrapped fruit and veg.
The fruit and veg section has been expanded but is mixed with more pre-processed vegetables like the new range of sliced potatoes.
Whilst it is ultimately ‘a good thing’ that Waitrose (or, insert any other supermarket name here) has decided that it is profitable enough to follow this trend, it does make you wonder exactly where their heart is….if one the other hand they are selling packaged sliced potatoes.
Hope there will be more unpacked fruit and veg like they had in the Botley store. Bit disappointed with all the packaging there still.
Is it any cheaper?
The ‘Unpacked’ offer is not as good as they demonstarted at Botley and this is the third re-fit where the provision of cycle parking has not been improved or actually made worse. Waitrose are providing a concience salve to super-polluters wth this half measure.
John, no, I believe it isn’t.
Remember, this is nothing to do with ‘the environment’ or whatever passing fad is en vogue. If it makes a profit…then it will happen. If it doesn’t, it won’t.
“We all want to save the planet, but not if it costs the Earth”…
(this is my phrase , and I used it first many moons ago)
Is it cheaper? Yes, on top of the 20% discount offer on everything on the deli counter on Saturday I got a further 10% off for having brought in my carton. I am disappointed though that there is still so much plastic packaging around.
I’ve seen in some retail news websites, that the fresh fruit & veg part of “Unpacked” (like at Botley) won’t be rolled out any further, which is a shame cos that’s the main thing I would have used it for.