Zero Waste Packaging Platform Loop Expands Across the U.S.
Loop is taking its effort to curb single-use packaging national with expansion to 48 states.
After a successful pilot run, the revamped “milkman” delivery and e-commerce platform — which helps to repackage beauty and consumer goods into reusable and refillable packaging — is looking to facilitate greater circularity.
New Jersey-based company TerraCycle first tested its Loop venture in New York City, and later diffused the premise of circularity to consumers in the mid-Atlantic and abroad to Paris and, most recently, the U.K.
And both brands and consumers are biting.
“Consumers across the country have urged us to bring Loop to them so we’ve scaled as quickly as possible to make that happen,” Tom Szaky, founder and chief executive officer of Loop and TerraCycle, said in a statement.
According to the company, Loop has seen substantial growth since launch, with now 100,000 customers and 80 brands signed on — including Unilever, Nature’s Path, Soapply and Melanin Essentials — comprising a 400-sku cross-category global assortment.
Alongside its global brand partners, Loop essentially helps to repackage products in packaging consumers can keep. The goods are delivered and retrieved in a special reusable shipping tote by the United Parcel Service. The company handles logistics like cleaning and refilling, too, so customers don’t have to worry about cleaning out the peanut butter container before sending it back to be refilled.
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The U.S. shopper can comb through more than 100 products on Loopstore.com from more than 30 brands, across beauty, grocery and household goods categories at present. In what appears to be a perfect storm for the company, many more U.S. customers have been turning to online grocery shopping amid the pandemic, surging from around 3 percent to 4 percent pre-pandemic to 10 percent to 15 percent, according to research by consulting firm Bain & Co. Loop’s assortment offering is expected to double by end of this year.
Increasingly, according to Szaky, consumers are seeking “a sustainable, waste-free solution” for their packaging. In particular, many are hoping to stem the waste that e-commerce has drummed up, with its cardboard boxes and bubblewrap.
As WWD reported, Loop was assessing the viability of grocery chain Kroger in the U.S. for brick-and-mortar penetration, but it will remain strictly online until the vision becomes reality in 2021.
Next year, Loop will tackle Canada, Australia and Japan in its mission to make durable packing a norm.
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