In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, many high-profile sustainability initiatives have taken a back seat to single-use packaging, with many grocery stores banning reusable bags and Starbucks no longer accepting refillable mugs. Despite this, Loop is going all in on reusable packaging, launching its waste-free CPG delivery platform nationwide through retailers Walgreens and Kroger with heavyweight brand partners including PepsiCo, Nestlé and Unilever. Loop, which launched a pilot last spring in New York and Paris, sells products like Nature’s Path granola and Haagen Dazs ice cream, with products from beverage brands like Chameleon Cold Brew and Tropicana currently in development. It also offers household and personal care items from companies like Procter & Gamble and The Clorox Company. The products are offered in reusable jars and containers delivered to consumers in a reusable tote, and when the containers are empty, consumers pack them up in the tote and schedule a pickup with partner UPS, who sends them to be cleaned and sterilized. If consumers have a subscription (about 30% of Loop users do), returning a container triggers the purchase of a new item to be sent. Non-subscribers put down a small deposit on the container and get it back when it’s returned. “Loop tries as best as it can to emulate the convenience of disposability to make it feel like a disposable system,” said Loop CEO Tom Szaky, who is also CEO of parent company TerraCycle. The worries surrounding reusability that have arisen amidst the COVID-19 pandemic haven’t seemed to apply to Loop, said Szaky, though they have been experiencing similar supply chain backups as other food and beverage companies. Though the nationwide online launch with Walgreens and Kroger was already in the works, it’s actually been accelerated to early this summer as more consumers have shifted to purchasing products online. “It’s not that single use is safe or unsafe, it’s not like reusable is safe or unsafe, it’s how you deploy those ideas that makes it safe or unsafe,” he said. “It’s the systems behind it that govern safety.” TerraCycle’s larger mission is to “eliminate the idea of waste,” said Szaky, through collecting and recycling materials that are not traditionally recyclable, like toothbrushes and candy wrappers, and also integrating waste back into products, like using ocean plastic in a Head & Shoulders bottle. With Loop, Szaky has taken the goal of waste elimination one step further, starting a division that “tries to solve waste without it ever occurring.” The root cause of waste is using things once, but single-use packaging hasn’t always been the norm, said Szaky, with milk bottles delivered by a milkman being a prime example. In fact, it only rose to prominence in the mid-1900s as packaging moved from being the property of the manufacturer to property of the consumer. “Do you want to own a coffee cup when there’s no coffee in it, or own a toothpaste tube when there’s no toothpaste in it?” said Szaky. “Why should we?” Owning the packaging comes at the price of the consumer, and as packaging is made cheaper, it’s usually made less recyclable. To address this problem, Loop partners with CPG companies to create reusable versions of their products that lower their carbon footprint, in a concept that Szaky said is “sort of like the idea of organic but instead of caring about farming practices, we care about reusability.” According to Szaky, brands are motivated to join Loop for two reasons: they get to innovate in ways they never have before, and they’re able to upgrade their sustainability. Once brands partner with Loop (and pay an onboarding fee), the company works with them to support the creation of sustainable packaging, like stainless steel ice cream containers and glass jars for beverages and nut butter. “Loop provides a much-needed innovation platform, challenging companies to take a fresh look at our value chains and integrate reusable product packaging as part of our efforts to waste-reduction,” said Laurent Freixe, Nestlé CEO for Zone Americas, in a press statement. “Nestlé is proud to be a founding investor and partner of Loop with the debut in the U.S of the Häagen-Dazs reusable container. It’s a critical part of our commitment to work with consumers to protect our planet for future generations.” Because new product development takes time, it can take from one to two years from the time brands sign on to the platform to actually begin shipping product to consumers. Szaky said of the 400 brands that have signed on, about 100 are currently shipping within the Loop system and the rest are in various stages of development. Partners like PepsiCo’s Tropicana orange juice, Purely Elizabeth granola, oatmeal and bars, Canadian brand Greenhouse’s kombucha and Nestle’s Chameleon Cold Brew are still in development. Retailers like Walgreens and Kroger are first launching Loop stores digitally, offering a selection of Loop products on their respective websites, before brick-and-mortar rollouts this fall where Loop will have its own section in the stores. Loop will also be rolling out in the United Kingdom, Canada, Germany and Japan. The company has also created its own private label brand, Puretto, to test consumer interest. Puretto items, which include products like cheddar crackers, pretzels and bagel chips, are usually sold for six to 12 months, long enough to show proof of concept, and indicate that a national brand is considering developing a product for the category. While individual companies, not Loop, ultimately set the price for items, Szaky said prices are typically kept close to that of the original product. In a time when certain products like baking ingredients or cleaning wipes are seeing online surges, there hasn’t been a push for one particular item on Loop. According to Szaky, products typically don’t perform “better or worse” on the platform. “If you buy a certain ecosystem of products and you like the idea of reusable, you’re buying that same ecosystem of products, but now in reusable,” he said.