Draw your own beer or pour mineral water into your bottle: this is now possible in some Coop branches. For example in the Basler Südpark or at the Baden AG train station. The beer comes from the Valaisanne brewery, and the mineral water is from Rhäzünser.
The campaign is a step towards reducing packaging waste. Starting in the summer, Coop will be testing more gas stations. For liquid detergents and dishwashing detergents and for long-life foods such as rice or oat flakes.
Thus, Coop is following its biggest competitor. Migros introduced a number of loose stations last year. test method. Just a few days ago, it announced that the pilot had done so well that it is now expanding its unpackaged range to other areas and stores.
30,000 tons of material saved
With the unpackaged range, the two retailers are responding to the growing environmental awareness of their customers. Retailers are doing everything they can to demonstrate their commitment to climate protection over and over again.
According to the statement, Coop has already reduced or improved more than 30,000 tons of packaging materials. Migros reports that since the introduction of its packaging-free stations last fall, it has already supplied more than 42,500 one-way packages.
But is the unpackaged collection really more environmentally friendly? Yes, a Coop spokeswoman says upon request. Because food is transported in much larger containers, which saves not only packaging materials in the final sale, but also in storage and transportation.
Competitors see this positively: “You have to overcome an obstacle to fill yourself up”(01:01)
“This thing isn’t working.”
Olivier Richard, founder of French-speaking Swiss franchise Chez Mamie, which is committed to selling sustainable, unpackaged products, doesn’t believe sellers’ commitment to credibility: “They do it to make money because they feel the demand. But that doesn’t work,” he claims.
Because in bulk stores, it’s not just profit that rules: “We also have an ethical and philosophical concept behind it that we want to protect the planet and pay producers in a completely fair way,” he says. This cannot be achieved simply through mass production.
However, Richard doesn’t want to completely demonize the retailers’ commitment: he thinks it’s basically a good idea to call attention to the issue of “disassembly”.
Conscious consumption
Iris Huber, founder of package-free store Bare Ware from Winterthur ZH, is pleased that with the entry of retailers, the sale of unpackaged products is becoming more and more widely available. But it also emphasizes that commitment should not stop there.
“In addition to reducing waste, our bulk stores have much larger goals that we’re constantly working on,” Huber says.
In addition to fair and sustainable production, this also includes conscious consumption and avoidance of food waste. “This is why we only offer perishable products in small quantities,” says the entrepreneur. (SDA/ISE)
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