In the roughly eight months since the Loop reusable packaging service has been up and running with pilot e-commerce consumers in select markets, there have been package design hiccups, retailer additions and product-line extensions. As an early adopter in Loop parent company TerraCycle’s home state of New Jersey, I’ve witnessed all of that firsthand. Now, I’m eager for the company to pull off its next planned U.S. milestone: integrating supermarket and drug store locations affiliated with The Kroger Co. and Walgreens into the business model, so customers can drop off empty containers more frequently, without having to ship back or find a UPS location to drop off the rather hefty tote used for deliveries. (Each easily can transport up to 20 or so items, depending on the assortment purchased.) If things go TerraCycle CEO Tom Szaky’s way, West Coast stores from Kroger — its various brands including Dillons, Fred Meyer and Ralphs are in 35 states nationwide — will start accepting Loop container returns by mid-2020. East Coast customers will need to wait until the fall, when Walgreens plans to do the same. The idea is Loop accountholders will be able to return empty containers when and where it’s convenient to in-store bins. From there, TerraCycle will orchestrate transportation to facilities where they can be inspected, washed and sanitized prior to being refilled, Szaky said. "You can drop off the product, no matter where you bought it," Szaky told me, when we chatted about Loop’s progress late last year. Through a Loop spokesperson, Kroger and Walgreens declined to comment on their specific plans for the Loop service. Both went public with their Loop partnerships in May. TerraCycle Loop hopes to integrate in-store collection in the U.S. by the middle of 2020. Introduced in January 2019 to much fanfare at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Loop celebrated its first birthday last month, although the service only started delivering to consumers in its launch markets near Paris and New York in May. Its premise was simple: to carry only products that come in reusable, refillable bottles, jugs or cans. Those items are purchased online and delivered to the customer's doorstep via UPS. Loop is available to a "community of thousands" (TerraCycle doesn’t disclose exact numbers) in 10 U.S. states, and new consumer product brands are being added on an almost daily basis — ranging from pantry staples such as the dried chickpeas in my own cabinet to specialty nut butters to personal care items. Close to 150 unique products are available in both France and the United States, where the best-sellers include Häagen-Dazs ice cream (my favorite is the non-dairy coconut caramel blend it's testing), Tide detergent and Clorox wipes. Right now, Loop caters to customers who aren't afraid to spend a little extra on groceries or that have a craving for niche items that might not find their way onto mainstream store shelves. The prices themselves are higher than you would pay in-store for similar items, plus the deposits can add up quickly: I've only got six items at home right now, but my "active" deposit account has a balance of $41. Loop is acting as the bank for that money. Szaky told me that while the current Loop customer may skew high-end or eco-conscious, TerraCycle is seeking to create a mass-market appeal by adding products you'd find in your neighbor's pantry. The Kroger and Walgreen's relationships will be instrumental in making that happen, especially if they become active locally in every place possible. Kroger is the second-largest U.S. retailer and largest grocery supermarket company with more than 2,800 stores; Walgreens, which operates in all 50 states, had close to 9,300 locations as of August. That's an impressive physical footprint. Expansions into the United Kingdom, Canada, Germany, Japan and Australia are in the works starting in March and over the next two years in close collaboration with prominent retailers in those geographies including Tesco (UK) and Loblaw (Canada). As the service matures, more of these new markets intend to launch an integrated in-store/online version of Loop, with Japan and Australia likely to lead that charge, Szaky said.

The trouble with totes

While TerraCycle may be the primary corporate face of the Loop brand, the important role of retailers in scaling any reusable packaging model should not be downplayed. Partners like Kroger and Walgreens bring inventory and category management expertise, merchandising savvy, pricing know-how, logistics and e-commerce expertise and, of course, existing connections with everyday shoppers. The future role retailers will play in collection will be crucial, as Loop seeks to shrink the amount of time containers spend in the hands of consumers before they are returned and refilled. Right now, that period varies dramatically depending on the product category — on a monthly basis for ice cream, for example, or up to three months for shampoo. Mostly, it depends not just on how quickly a consumer uses up a given product but on whether they decide to wait until a tote is full before a return shipment. Our experience reinforces our belief that this is not just a trend that is going to come and go. One of Loop’s value propositions is that it can help brands better understand consumption habits as it reduces their dependence on single-use packaging. "In our model, we can report on repeat, refill, how long it takes, whether they take advantage of autorefill," said Heather Crawford, vice president of marketing and e-commerce at TerraCycle. Right now, however, it’s difficult to estimate how long containers sit empty in customers’ homes as they transfer items into other receptacles or as they wait to fill up a return tote — the only tote size right now is 19 inches by 16.5 inches by 16 inches. The cushiony inserts that hold the containers can be reconfigured to handle the different sizes and to accommodate the heavy cold pack that's used to transport frozen items before they melt. If there's ice cream in your order, you can only consolidate a half-dozen more items or so into the same shipment. And be careful when you're picking the tote up: An empty tote containing a cold pack weighs more than 15 pounds. Speaking from personal experience, I’ve managed to return just two batches of spent containers in the service’s iconic tote since May. That's in part because I live in a two-person household and I had a tough time finding items that I actually wanted to order — right after I signed up for Loop, my doctor prescribed a food elimination diet that bounced many of the plant-based products in the Loop inventory off my plate. But mostly, I felt guilty about the carbon emissions impact of dispatching a UPS delivery truck to pick up an almost-empty package. Ultimately, I opted for what I considered to be a more eco-friendly option: bringing my return tote to a UPS shipping location while I was out on another errand. But my experience isn’t unique and for some markets, notably Tokyo where people live in much smaller homes with far less storage space, TerraCycle is considering a smaller tote. Adding collection bins at retailers is also likely to reduce the reuse cycle, as consumers will be able to return containers far more frequently. Loop Haagen-Dazs is one of the best selling items on Loop. The shape of the pint jars are designed to withstand 100 cleaning cycles.

Nestle, Reinberger Nut Butter share early learnings

While the Loop products in the United States and France are different, the categories where shoppers are gravitating toward in Loop’s reusable containers are similar, including quick-turn grocery and pantry staples that generate the "highest volume of visible garbage," Crawford said. Loop also has helped generate interest in niche and specialty items, such as the various protein spreads sold by Reinberger Nut Butter, a small food company in the Philadelphia area that was less-than-impressed by its experience selling products through Amazon. Reinberger, which already distributed its mixed nut butter in reusable containers, changed its design to make it lighter and introduced single-nut lines unique to Loop, said Luke Rein, who manages production for the company. Its container isn’t entirely reusable — the aluminum lid needs to be handled differently because of the seal — but as sales grow, it’s addressing that issue. "Ideologically, this matches up well and is a good source of revenue," Rein said. According to Crawford, the average Loop order size is eight to 10 items (far less than what its big tote currently can handle). It’s adding brands on an almost daily basis, after they meet the company’s container design criteria. There have been some snafus with some products. For example, the initial containers for Tide's plant-based Purclean laundry detergent needed to be tweaked when the lids were found to leak, an issue that was annoying for me at home, as the detergent kept oozing down the side of the bottle onto my laundry room shelf. While the U.S. and French markets launched with about 80 products each, new regions likely will have at least 200 products at launch. In our model, we can report on repeat, refill, how long it takes, whether they take advantage of autorefill. At this time, no containers used in the U.S. or France have reached their maximum reuse potential, Crawford said, at which point they will be recycled or upcycled. That includes Nestle’s popular metal Häagen-Dazs ice cream containers, which posed a unique design challenge to the company, according to Steven Yeh, commercialization project manager for the Nestle ice cream team. The shape of the pint-ish-sized jars, designed to withstand 100 cleaning cycles, was rounded to make the ice cream easier to scoop and double-walled both for durability and to keep cold during the delivery process, Yeh said. (As already mentioned, Loop also includes a cold pack in its totes for frozen items.) It took six months to come up with the current container. Nestle’s experience with Loop so far is being used to inform its strategies and perceptions about consumer subscription models. It will test another edition of the reusable metal containers at more than 200 Häagen-Dazs ice cream boutiques across the U.S., where it hopes to allow customers to bring them back for refills, starting in New York. "Our experience reinforces our belief that this is not just a trend that is going to come and go," Yeh said. "It reinforces our commitment to a reusable container. We need to focus even more efforts on this."

Proponents of the circular economy say recycling isn’t enough to solve our waste issue. But how far are consumers willing to go with reusable packaging?

The circular economy is creating a buzz as startups pop up across the globe. But innovators are counting on consumers to opt-in, and behavior change isn't always easy. I gave the latest circular economy trend a try and found that it wasn't what I expected.   In 2014, I made a New Year's resolution to stop purchasing beverages in single-use plastic containers. A year later, I included snack food. But when I tried to go plastic-free, I was stumped. Plastic is everywhere. My local grocery store sold broccoli wrapped in plastic. I couldn't find the food, supplies, or things I wanted, without throwaway packaging — and I wasn't willing to part with my essentials. Since then, I've been keeping an eye out for innovative ways to reduce disposable plastic — a growing interest for consumers, to which innovators are responding.

Innovators Lead the Way

Some companies are making products from recycled materials, like Adidas, who partnered with Parley for the Oceans to make sneakers from ocean-plastic yarn. Others opt for making products that can be repaired, like FairPhone, which makes smartphones with modular, upgradeable components. Companies like Loop, GreenToGo, and Humankind aim to reduce packaging waste by replacing disposable containers with tough ones and creating a system to return and reuse.   "The real garbage problem comes from the idea of disposables, and that is where we need to start." ANTHONY ROSSI, VICE PRESIDENT OF GLOBAL DEVELOPMENT, LOOP   Unlike the linear "take-and-trash" economy, the circular economy, also known as circularity, strives to cut waste completely while embracing alternatives like refurbishment, repair, and reuse. Experts argue that "recycling" doesn't always come into play because circularity isn't only about reducing trash. It takes into account resources. Recycling reduces an object down to the "material" level. The inherent value gained from other resource inputs like design, manufacturing, shipping, etc. is lost when an item is recycled. Proponents of circularity say "recycling is a last resort." Being steps ahead of me, tossing an item in the trash, wasn't even on their mind. "The idea of the circular economy is that we need to be preventing waste. Solid waste, but also waste that comes from inefficient systems or inefficient design," says Jennifer Russell, Assistant professor at Virginia Tech Department of Sustainable Biomaterials. She was a lead author on a UN report that quantified the benefits and impact of transitioning to a circular economy. She says while reuse and repair may be the most energy-efficient options, remanufacturing and refurbishment isn't too far behind. "Even in the most intensive remanufacturing process, it's still significantly less than the effort and energy required to make a brand new one. If we start to design (products) better, we can get more efficient at those circular processes, and we can reduce the impacts even more," Russell says, adding that of the products she surveyed, refurbishing industrial digital printers had the highest impact, which was still lower than building a new one.   Illustration by Andrew Brumagen / Freethink.

Changing Behavior

When I was in Durham, North Carolina, I gave GreenToGo a try. You can bring your own container to restaurants for leftovers, but the FDA doesn't allow restaurants to prepare take-out food in containers customers provide. Their only option is disposable containers, often of the plastic clam-shell variety. GreenToGo created a workaround. They stock restaurants with reusable take-out containers, then wash and sanitize them after they are returned by patrons at stations across downtown Durham. I ordered a sandwich from the restaurant Toast, to-go. Ordering was easy. For people that frequent downtown, it is just as easy to slip the container in the return bin during the next visit. Being a visitor, I made a special detour. Not everyone is as willing as I am to try a new system. Anthony Rossi, Loop's Vice President of Global Development, says that behavior change is one of the biggest challenges they face at Loop. The startup launched last year and is still in the early stages. "We don't believe in garbage, and we want to eliminate it," Rossi says. The company partnered with big brands like Clorox, Glad, and Haagen Dazs. Through a mail-order service, Loop offers patrons their favorite food or household supplies in durable — and admittedly adorable — reusable containers for a deposit. Then, they take the empty containers back, refund the deposit, and reuse the containers.   The US produces approximately 234lb of plastic waste per person per year. Studies show that if present trends continue there will be 12 billion metric tons of plastic in landfills around the world by 2050. Photo Courtesy of Pixabay. "What remains to be seen, and something worth studying, and I think that it's true, even if you are making it more durable and cleaning it multiple times and shipping something slightly heavier, it's still going to create a net benefit from an environmental impact perspective, relative to if we just keep making things brand new," Russell says. Rossi says companies have honed their production and distribution down to a smooth, efficient process. Asking them to change... well, it takes a lot of convincing. What's more, Loop is also asking consumers to consume a product differently. "Innately people want to do the right thing. People don't like garbage," Rossi says, adding that, "Behavior change doesn't come easy. If we tried this three years ago, I'm not sure we would have had the reception we have."

Recycling Won’t Solve the Plastic Problem

Loop is a corporate startup of TerraCycle. Rossi says the idea was born during a company conversation about innovative recycling efforts. CEO Tom Szaky asked the team if recycling was the goal they should have in 50 years. The resounding answer was "no." "Recycling everything and making everything out of recycled content is a utopian idea. We are very far from that. The real garbage problem comes from the idea of disposables, and that is where we need to start," Rossi says.   A repurposed aluminum bottle for laundry detergent. Image courtesy of Loop. Daniella Russo, CEO of Think Beyond Plastic, says recycling plastic is a challenge. Today's low oil prices render new plastic the cheapest and most durable option for packaging. "Recycling (plastic) is non-viable economically because the recycled material is more expensive than the use of virgin plastic," she says, adding that metal, glass, and paper are economically viable because manufacturing them costs more than recycled material. What's more, plastic is a catch-22. It is durable and cheap but comes with a hefty waste burden and potential public health concerns due to chemicals that can leach into food or beverages stored in plastic containers. Think Beyond Plastics helps organizations find alternatives to plastic. "We're not against recycling, we just don't think it will solve the plastic problem. Not everything needs to be packaged and overpackaged in plastic," she says.

Eliminating Plastics Could Bring Additional Challenges

Still, plastic has its upsides. For example, a product's weight drives negative environmental impacts — heavier objects require more energy to produce and ship. But heavier doesn't always mean reusable, unless there is a system designed to collect and clean them. Recently, packaging designs have been evolving to be lighter and thinner. "Light-weighting" packages use fewer materials and less energy to manufacture and transport, when compared per unit, such as thinner plastic water bottles. Thin plastic wrap, which is so hard to avoid at the supermarket, has been shown to reduce food waste in commercial settings, Russell says. (At home, however, glass containers or Tupperware will work just fine.) Finally, plastic is durable and cheap. Companies can easily have it designed to meet their needs. So, it is a balancing act. Tipping the scale away from plastics will solve some problems, but could present additional challenges. I sat down to give Loop a try earlier this week. I planned to order my household essentials — granola, dried fruits, shampoo, laundry detergent, etc. I'm a sucker for attractive packaging — and Loop nailed that one. I'll admit, doing laundry would be a lot more fun with a cute aluminum bottle of laundry soap. But as I added items to my virtual shopping cart, the cost, plus deposit made my jaw drop. Also, I couldn't find enough products that I wanted that would put me into the minimum order size for free shipping. The $15 shipping fee for small orders was the final dealbreaker. Rossi says there are 300 more products in development. I'm keeping an eye on Loop's progress and plan to try their subscription option when they have more of my favorites.

Like many environmentalists, Tom Szaky, CEO of TerraCycle, believes reuse must play a large role in solving eco-challenges, but he doesn’t think sustainability guilt will be enough to change behaviors. Aesthetics, however, might. At a session at the NRF Big Show, Mr. Szaky provided some early learnings on Loop, a service the waste recycling company developed that allows shoppers to purchase orange juice, laundry detergent and other CPG items in reusable containers. Users put down a refundable deposit via the Loop website when ordering. Loop delivers the items in reusable glass or metal bottles to shoppers’ doors and then retrieves the empties for cleaning and reuse. Participating retailers, including Carrefour, Kroger and Walgreens, act as pickup and drop-off points.   Mr. Szaky assumed consumers would embrace Loop due to sustainability concerns. He admits, however, that it’s hard to overcome the “unparalleled convenience and affordability” that came when the “disposable lifestyle” was commercialized in the 1950s. “Even with all that awareness, even the enlightened folks are constantly voting over and over again for a disposable world with their money,” he said. Encouragingly, many consumers are embracing Loop because of the aesthetic appeal from upgraded packaging that includes stainless steel. “Most people come into it because of beautiful design, then love that it is sustainable,” said Mr. Szaky. In some cases, upgraded packaging adds features. A Häagen-Dazs stainless-steel reusable in the Loop program is thermally insulated to not only keep the ice cream frozen longer but to keep the surface warm to the touch. The concave vessel also makes the ice cream easier to scoop. Said Mr. Szaky, “It’s just a way better overall experience.” Some containers may even help improve flavors. Coca Cola, which is bringing back its original iconic package, said Coke tastes best in a glass, followed by aluminum and finally PET plastic. Convenience may also play a role in converting shoppers. With hand or dish soap, many households already pour store-bought bottles into different containers. Mr. Szaky stresses that the ease of returning reusables has to match the ease of disposables. “Our overall mission here is to give consumers a disposable experience where they throw out the packaging, don’t clean it, don’t sort it — a completely disposable experience. But act reusable behind the scenes,” he said.

• Kroger and Loop Announce Exclusive Grocery Retail Partnership – Loop
• Can Loop make packaging reusability a reality at scale? – RetailWire

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• When it comes to packaging, aesthetics matter.
• With Loop, companies treat packaging like an asset.
• Brands are using Loop to learn about customer habits.

  When he founded TerraCycle in 2001, Tom Szaky was in the business of keeping tough-to-recycle products out of landfills. In 2019, he expanded that mandate with a service called Loop, which focuses on reusing packaging instead of merely recycling it. In partnership with several well-known brands, Loop offers household goods from olive oil to laundry detergent in reusable containers that are either delivered direct to consumers or available through two major retail outlets, then collects, cleans and refills them—much like a modern-day milkman. When Szaky sought to better understand why people were purchasing items through Loop, he was surprised by the results. Survey data revealed that two-thirds of Loop customers were mainly drawn to the program because of its packaging design; only one-third prioritized the sustainability aspect. Since Loop is all about saving the planet by eliminating waste, Szaky had expected the inverse. “A better experience with packaging is the primary driver,” Szaky told Adweek. “The secondary driver is sustainability.” Earlier this week, during a presentation at the National Retail Federation’s annual conference in New York, Szaky stressed the importance of aesthetics in consumer decision-making. While people often buy shampoo twice as often as they buy conditioner, Loop shoppers purchase an equal amount of Pantene shampoo and conditioner, according to Szaky. Why? Although he didn’t disclose exact figures, internal polling revealed that people thought the bottles—which come in a matching gold-and-white color scheme, and feature images of sea life—looked good together. But it’s not just about beauty. Szaky argued that tubs of Häagen-Dazs ice cream sold on Loop are simply better than the typical cardboard cartons found at grocery stores because they’re dual-layered, providing thermal insulation so that consumers’ hands remain warm while the ice cream stays frozen. The inside of the container is also concave, making the ice cream easier to scoop out. Szaky added that even the product itself can benefit from better packaging. The team at Coca-Cola apparently told him Coke tastes best in a glass bottle, then aluminum, then plastic. One key change that allows for better packaging design through the Loop system, as opposed to a convenience store or vending machine, is the transfer of package ownership from consumer to manufacturer, Szaky said. When a company is responsible for a durable container meant for multiple uses, it’s treated like an asset as opposed to the cost of goods sold. Since Loop requires a security deposit with each purchase, companies are given extra leeway to invest even more money into their packaging design, generating better functions and features. “Can you imagine what you could do with a package budget of $30 per unit?” he said. He noted that customers have shown little to no sensitivity to the deposit price, either. A can of Clorox disinfecting wipes, for instance, costs $5.49 to purchase, plus an additional $10 deposit. Despite this, Szaky said Clorox wipes are one of the top five best selling products on the site. Last week, another Clorox brand, Glad, began selling sandwich bags on Loop for $4.99 with a $10 deposit. Once ordered, consumers receive 100 plastic bags in a square metal tin, along with a yellow zippered pouch to put the used bags in for recycling later. According to Nick Higgins, Glad’s marketing director, the package took six weeks to design, and consumer feedback throughout the process was positive. “If you think about our traditional manufacturing system, it’s been engineered to deliver products in a way that people use them and then it’s their responsibility for how they ultimately want to dispose of them,” Higgins said. While it’s still too early to tell how Glad’s metal tin is performing on Loop, Higgins said the brand is excited to gain insights into how people might reuse its products. “As a brand, we want to continue to make progress in this area,” he said. “Using something like Loop as a learning partner to understand consumer habits and practices, and the business models associated with that, is what makes this really attractive to us.” Loop, which debuted in May 2019 in select cities in the U.S. and France, is scheduled to roll out in the U.K., Canada, Germany and Japan later this year. Presently, the platform works with retailers Walgreens and Kroger, and about 100 major CPG conglomerates, including Pepsi, Nestle, Unilever and Procter & Gamble. While Loop has yet to make an official announcement, Szaky said the company will soon reveal new partnerships with a fast-food company and high-end cosmetics brand.         Szaky added that since Loop began, it has, on average, added a new brand every two days and a new retailer every three weeks. While the program remains in test mode, he’s optimistic that Loop will continue to grow. “Disposability is our competition,” he said. “It’s an easy enemy to hate, thank God.”

“This session is probably the one I am most excited about. In every conversation, the word sustainability comes up,” said PSFK Founder Piers Fawkes. “We hear it on the stages, we hear it in the corridors, we hear it on the floor. But I don’t think many of us really know how to leverage it, how to really use it. What do we do with all these products? How do we return these products? What happens then?”   Everything can be recycled, it’s just a question of whether it’s profitable to do so.   TerraCycle CEO Tom Szaky has the answers. TerraCycle’s new Loop initiative is a circular shopping platform that lets consumers shop online for household goods in durable, reusable packaging that can later be picked up, refilled and redelivered. Loop has allowed leading CPG brands including Tide, Häagen-Dazs and Clorox to eliminate single-use packaging, replacing it with reusable, recycled materials such as stainless steel and reengineered plastic. In addition, stores such as Carrefour in France and Kroger and Walgreens in the United States are stocking Loop packaged items.   “Everything can be recycled, it’s just a question of whether it’s profitable to do so,” Szaky said. “An infinitely durable item is infinitely profitable.”   Accommodating the desires of eco-minded consumers has also presented exciting new business opportunities for brands like Patagonia. “Historically these circular supply chains and business models used to be a competitive edge for brands like Patagonia, but going forward, I firmly believe that they are going to be a means for companies, brands and retailers to survive,” said Patagonia’s Head of Corporate Development Phil Graves. Repairing, reselling, upcycling and recycling has been part of the outdoor retailer’s business model since the 1970s; Patagonia has 70 global repair centers that fix more than 100,000 items every year.   In 2017, Patagonia went all in on re-commerce and launched the Worn Wear resell business unit. Customers can take Patagonia items to a store or mail it in and receive a gift card for the item. The item is then handed off to logistics and technology startup Yerdle, where it is inspected, cleaned, photographed, stocked in inventory and posted for sale online. “Since 2017, we have kept more than 130,000 used items in play and given them a second life,” Graves said. “As a brand, we love that we get to control the entire customer experience and ensure that it is top notch.” That brand control is an important component in re-commerce, noted Yerdle CEO Andy Ruben. “Because third-party marketplaces buy these products back from all of us, we’re in a moment where there is no longer brand control of how the products are showing up in the world,” Ruben said. “It’s why I’m increasingly convinced that brands and retailers must own their re-commerce. They must have control of their experience.”   Branded re-commerce is certainly working for Patagonia: The Worn Wear business unit has had 40 percent growth in revenue and profitability since it launched, Graves said, and has attracted customers that are on average 10 years younger than the typical Patagonia customer. To build on that momentum, Patagonia launched its first Worn Wear pop-up store in Boulder, Colo., in November and created a new line of products made from clothing that was beyond repair, the ReCrafted Collection. “Buying used is in,” Graves concluded.

Less than a year ago, I told you about Loop, the company launched by Trenton-based Terracycle. Basically, Loop is seeking to completely change the way Americans purchase and use disposable containers. The change is dramatic; if Loop gets its way, all containers will be reusable. Basically, the company is taking the old milkman model and applying to everything, from Haagan Dazs ice cream to Clorox Wipes. Instead of buying those products and throwing away the container when you’re done, Loop sends you the products in branded stainless steel packaging, and when you’re done, you send it back. Zero waste. “We’re stopping and thinking and saying that even if 100 percent of products and packaging were recyclable, and even if 100 percent of products are made from recycled content, is that still the best?” Anthony Rossi, the vice-president of Global Business Development at Loop, told me for the original article. “Two years ago Tom (Szaky, Terracycle founder and CEO) got to thinking and said ‘no, we can’t stop there.’ One, it’s utopian. I don’t think we’ll ever get close to that number, but two the real problem here is disposability. And so we’re attacking disposability by working with partners to reengineer their packaging to be durable and reusable while providing infrastructure to get products to consumers and back.” OK. That was about 10 months ago. Today? “Time” has named Loop one of the 100 best inventions of 2019, 5,000 people are using LoopStore.com to do tons of their shopping, and another 85,000 are on the waiting list to get into Loop’s pilot program. I’d say so far, so … really freaking fantastic. “It’s rethinking trash,” said Donna Liu, a Princeton resident who is a Loop customer. “And it’s easy to use. Honestly, in the beginning, I was a little bit puzzled as to when you order, how do you time it. But it’s much simpler than I thought it would be. You schedule your order online and it comes within a day a two.” Liu said she orders about once a month, with the order including many of the typical grocery store purchases. “Personal care products, shampoo, conditioner, cleaning products, some foods, snacks, dried grains, rice, quinoa, cashews … I just kind of browse their store, look at the things I’d be using anyway, and order it,” Liu said. Granted, Liu admits it is slightly more expensive to order through Loop, but she sees it as a long-term investment that will pay off down the road. “I call it the ‘green margin,’ Liu said. “It’s the cost of not generating more trash, it’s the cost of not adding to the environment’s problems.” And that’s, obviously, the whole reason Loop exists. To create a system in which our purchases don’t add to the problem. And really: Even if you’re a staunch anti-environmentalist, there’s no downside to Loop’s model becoming the dominant force in the industry. And it could certainly happen, and might even happen sooner that anyone dare hope. “At launch, we were in the early phase of the pilot and since May, we have added over 120 products and have doubled our coverage in the United States, adding six new states,” said Eric Rosen, the publicist for Loop/Terracycle. “We have also recently announced committed retail partners in the UK (Tesco), Canada (Loblaws), and Australia (Woolworths). We are also beginning to engage in scale-up conversations with our U.S. retail partners and planning for how we will bring the Loop platform into retailers’ e-commerce platforms and brick-and-mortar stores. And in 2020, you can expect Loop to be available in Canada, the UK, Germany and Japan. And we anticipate being in-store in select locations in the United States.” It would not surprise me one bit if we blinked ourselves to 2030 and saw that Loop has very legitimately changed the way the world’s system of product packaging. Trenton makes, the world reuses.

Here, leaders at the forefront of the industry explain why brands are more successful when they improve upon the food system as a whole. Working at the farmers market during college, Patrick Mateer was excited by what he saw: consumers and farmers connecting over eager demand for fresh and local food. But he was concerned, too, about the excess that was coming back from the market unsold with no other clear outlet, and about the problem of aligning the daily output of the farm with the weekly opportunity of the market. Attempting to solve these problems for farmers, and meet consumer demand for local, Mateer created Seal the Seasons, a frozen fruit brand hitting the market with an unprecedented model. “We wanted to replicate that same local feel in the grocery store by introducing lines of locally sourced, locally frozen, and locally sold products,” says the company’s COO Alex Piasecki. That means contracting with local farmers, freezing the goods locally and distributing only to markets in the region—all within about a 300-mile radius. On the shelf, the frozen, bagged fruit Seal the Seasons brings to market, is nothing new. The innovation demonstrated is in the way it serves farmers, communities, consumers and retailers behind the product. And this may be the next wave of innovation in the natural products space. “It’s not always about engineering something new,” Piasecki says, “because we can always engineer something new. It’s all about understanding the story and who you’re supporting with your dollars, more so than what you’re buying.” In many ways, this view is the core and founding ethos of the natural and organic products industry, and the influence the industry exerts throughout the U.S. food system is undeniable. But even as innovation and competition in this now $219 billion industry reaches a fever pitch, many experts witness an ironic stagnation in meaningful change. Does the market need more flavor choices in popcorn or more format choices for matcha? Maybe. But what the world urgently needs is innovations that work to regenerate the systems—ecological, financial, cultural and climatic—so threatened by rampant consumption. “We brought this just amazing innovation to the food industry,” Robyn O’Brien says about the natural products industry, “and we’ve reinvented these toxic products, brought them back into this wholesome, nutritious product.” The author, speaker and vice president of impact investing firm rePlant Capital has been tracking the industry throughout her career. “But then we just got stuck, and we kind of kept trying to reinvent ourselves on that wheel. And it just became a wheel that, instead of moving us forward, started spinning in place.” Too much of the industry today, O’Brien believes, is focused on the end-user product. “But if you think about everything it takes to get there, we need innovation at every level, from distribution to packaging, to transportation.” Seal the Seasons may not hit every level, but it is pioneering something meaningfully different in distribution. The company has now replicated its model in six growing regions across the country, working with nearly 60 farmers and selling frozen fruit in 3,000 grocery stores, proving that a local focus doesn’t inhibit a company’s national growth potential. There are clear ecological benefits to its model (Piasecki says each two pounds of fruit eliminates one pound of greenhouse gases when compared to average frozen food), but the motivation for the brand is really in the people it serves: the farmers struggling in a global market, the retailers attempting to satisfy demand for local, and the consumers seeking that local product—whether to support the farmer they met at the farmers market or just to buy American. It’s only going to become more important, Piasecki predicts, as consumers increasingly care “not only what their food is, but where it’s coming from, what it’s treated with, who’s growing it, are they paid a fair wage?” Quality matters, too, and he believes Seal the Seasons delivers on this. But he distinguishes between brand promise and product promise, which is just a matter of quality standards. “Consumers want that product to be great,” he says about the interaction of those promises. “They want that product to be sold to them at a value they think is fair, and they want that product to be produced in a way that is fair to everyone.”

Taking a step back

TerraCycle CEO Tom Szaky distinguishes between two different types of innovation. Even when trying to solve big problems, innovators often employ what he calls “twist innovation,” wherein tweaks are made to existing product concepts to make incremental improvements. What inspires Szaky, is what he calls “step back” innovation. By stepping back to look at the problem being solved, Szaky says, innovations can stimulate monumental leaps into the future. “Uber’s a good example, right? It’s not a better cab or a better price, it’s thinking about the concept of mobility within what resources are on the road today,” he says. “Or taking an arbitrary example of oral hygiene, I take a step back and first understand why it is the problem of oral hygiene even exists, what are the causes?” That, he says, is when innovators start thinking about not just the object, but the way the consumer receives it and interactes with it. Once the source problem is understood, he says, “you may land on an answer that doesn’t look like a toothbrush at all.” That would be a unique market advantage compared to a toothbrush “incrementally twisted” to feature new bristles or a better handle. “And I think that’s where you’re going to get the biggest opportunity to succeed, especially as an entrepreneur or a smaller company.”

Package deal

TerraCycle exists to eliminate the very idea of waste through collection and remanufacture programs. This intersects with the food and household goods industry on packaging. After all, even as islands of single-use plastics continue to pollute the oceans, “packaged” remains the middle name of the CPG world. (Indeed, TerraCycle’s programs include working with P&G to package the world’s top-selling shampoo, Head & Shoulders, in recycled ocean plastic.) For TerraCycle’s most ambitious program to date, the team applied a step back approach to packaging, asking why packaging exists and how those needs can be met without giving in to single-use materials. This step back also included a look back. “In the past, garbage didn’t exist,” Szaky says. “Things were reusable, things were beautiful, things were more durable, things were higher quality.” All major positives, he says, especially when compared to the disposable, low-quality packages we use today that don’t often deliver a particularly good consumer experience beyond the most basic function. The exploration resulted in Loop, a bold plan to create packaging that is both durable and appealing to consumers and can be returned, cleaned and reused—not recycled—at the same value level again and again, and to build it with the biggest players in household goods: P&G, Nestle, PepsiCo, Coca-Cola, Clorox and Unilever. This required “thinking beyond the three-dimensional design of the product and the two-dimensional artwork that adorns it,” Szaky says, and tackling the system behind it. Each of these brands, and others, are participating to create what Szaky calls an ecosystem, and thereby a critical mass of offerings consumers can interact with—something he believes is required to create the momentum necessary for Loop to be successful. Presently the programs are handled by mail, but eventually will involve major retailers selling goods and collecting empties. In other words, not settling for a new twist on packaging has the potential to be, Szaky says, “a monumental reinvention of the very concept of that idea in a very futuristic way.” The program is off to a good start. Since its launch early this year—with a few hundred products in a handful of cities—Project Loop has engaged over 10,000 consumers. “The world is falling deeply out of love with packaging,” Szaky says. “Seeing the negative, losing the delight on the positives, it’s an existential crisis for packaging at the moment, which is the perfect time to open and question all the foundations around it.” Any potential success is a product of timing, Szaky says. “If you go back to the 1970s and 1980s, people were so in love with [packaging], you couldn’t foundationally have those discussions, because people didn’t see the problems. They had the love but not the negative.” Now, he says, everything is open to change. “It’s a massive ask of these brands,” Szaky says, “to ask them to reinvent everything: how they account for physical product itself, how it’s filled, the entire economic backbone to it, so on and so forth. But now with this particular time where we are, those conversations are on the table. Enthusiastically.”

Now’s the time

Innovation, of course, is always a question of timing. Changes in the collective consciousness make way for new opportunities to solve more fundamental problems. Are sufficient numbers of consumers eager enough to embrace the motivation behind the innovation? Are we ready to reassess some of the fundamental assumptions of capitalism? “In a way, it’s the same problem Wall Street has, where it’s just this insatiable drive to consistently be on your earnings model, quarter after quarter after quarter,” says O’Brien. “And when you get into that mindset of demanded, extracted growth, we pay a price.” O’Brien would like the industry to go deeper, like Seal the Seasons and TerraCycle have. “The invitation is to really think of the entire supply chain, the entire sourcing process, and think about ways we can do this in a smarter, more holistic way,” she says. “That’s the higher calling. I mean, that’s really what we’ve been called to do in the industry, is to innovate on the food system, not just the food product.”

The home cleaning market has been saddled with lackluster growth for years. New players, with new ideas, hope to shake up this $3.4 billion category. The only thing worse than cleaning the home is purchasing cleaning products, a process that wastes time and resources, according to detractors. No wonder that the newest ideas in home cleaning have less to do with cleaning spills than cleaning up the buying process. While few people admit to enjoy cleaning their homes, there’s no denying that the home cleaning category, when taken together, is a giant business. According to IRI, household cleaner sales in grocery, drug, mass market, military and select club and dollar retailers, rose 1.2% to more than $3.46 billion for the 52 weeks ended Sept. 8, 2019. Of course, some segments performed better than others. For example, all-purpose cleaner/disinfectant sales rose 4.7% to nearly $1.3 billion, but national brand managers should temper their enthusiasm, considering that private label sales surged more than 35% during the period. Oven and appliance cleaners and degreasers also outpaced overall industry growth, rising 8.3% to more than $203 million. The category has been a boon for Procter & Gamble, as its sales jumped more than 58% during the period, according to IRI. Meanwhile, sales were flat in multimillion-dollar categories like toilet bowl cleaners/deodorizers. But with sales limping along with a growth rate lower than the population growth, some entrepreneurs insist that the category is ripe for dramatic change through simplification. According to the founders of Truman’s, a new line of cleaning products, the cleaning process has become extremely complicated with a variety of formulas, SKUs, colors and scents. Their answer is four spray cleaners that work effectively on a variety of surfaces. There’s Everything And The Kitchen Sink kitchen cleaner, Floors Truly floor cleaner, More Shower To You bathroom cleaner and The Glass is Always Cleaner glass cleaner. What’s more, all four formulas come in concentrated cartridges. Consumers fill and refill spray bottles using water and cleaner formulas that are about the size of a Lifesavers package. It all adds up to a big savings in packaging and shipping costs—issues that have moved front and center with consumers. For Truman’s co-founders, reinventing an existing business model is nothing new. Jon Bostock and Alex Reed co-founded Truman’s after shaking up the staid industrial fan business. Bostock is the former president and COO of Big Ass Fans (BAF), which designs and sells large fans and lighting systems for industrial, commercial and farm use. Reed was BAF’s global marketing director. BAF was sold at the end of 2017, but Bostock and Reed wanted to do something entrepreneurial together. “We believe in the direct-to-consumer model and innovative products, and we felt that cleaning had been left behind,” Reed told Happi. “The supply chain is broken; products are primarily water, so companies are basically shipping and warehousing a small amount of active.” Problems continued once palettes are unloaded and products are placed on retail store shelves, according to Reed. “With so many unnecessary cleaners and fragrances, it is all very confusing,” he insisted. “No brand was born in the digital age of listening to the consumer. The category needed to be reimagined throughout the value chain.” Truman’s is a startup, but in its short existence company executives realized that consumers have an appetite for easy-to-use products that are “non-toxic.” People like to engage with us via social media and our website (www.Trumans.com),” insists Reed. “Household cleaning is a sleepy category and it doesn’t have to be.” In fact, Truman’s woke up Henkel to the possibility of a fun, DTC model. Two months ago, the multinational took a stake in the Louisville, KY-based startup. With the minority investment in Truman’s, Henkel is taking over the role as lead investor in a seed round totaling $5 million. “Convenience and sustainability today are top-of-mind for an increasing number of today’s consumers and we continuously advance our portfolio while addressing these topics. Specifically, when it comes to packaging, Henkel pursues ambitious targets for sustainable packaging to promote a circular economy and reduce plastic waste,” said Robert Günther, corporate director, Henkel Ventures, in statement. “We look forward to gaining insights from the Truman’s team, as well as supporting them with our expertise and resources.” The feeling is definitely mutual, said Reed, who noted that Henkel has broad manufacturing capabilities and international distribution. “We wanted to do more than take a paycheck,” he recalled. “Henkel has expertise in international trade and compliance, and has new technology, too. Now we have access to it.” Will Henkel ultimately offer the founders a buyout? Not necessarily. “Henkel’s venture arm made the investment and they want to see the value of the investment increase; this isn’t an acquisition nor is it a path to acquisition,” explained Reed. “We aren’t seeking new funds at this time, but it shows that the multinationals are interested (in a new model).” New from P&G Multinationals want new, whether its home grown or brought inside. Procter & Gamble expanded the Mr. Clean franchise earlier this year with two new formulas. Clean Freak is said to have three times the cleaning power of conventional all-purpose cleaners, and acts on contact to remove 100% of dirt, grease and grime leaving nothing behind but a perfect shine, according to Mary Johnson, a spokesperson for Procter & Gamble. The brand also launched Mr. Clean Magic Eraser Sheets that have Magic Eraser’s cleaning power but are thin and flexible. “Recently, we’ve focused on designing more plant-based products, to meet consumer needs and help increase our use of renewable materials,” explained Johnson. “We’ve introduced a plant-based portfolio in Fabric Care, with Tide purclean, Downy Nature Blends, Dreft purtouch and Gain Botanicals, and we’ve launched Home Made Simple, a plant-based home care & cleaning line designed to meet EPA Safer Choice and USDA Standards.” The Home Made Simple line includes detergent, fabric softener, multipurpose cleaner, hand soap and dish soap. According to P&G research, about 8% of consumers are committed to a lifestyle that includes natural products, but up to 76% of consumers are interested in trying such products. About 24% of consumers aren’t interested in naturals. Cleaner products that help consumers clean their homes has other benefits, too. “Consumers across the country are increasingly tapping into the mental clarity and peace of mind that comes from not only a clean home, but from the act of cleaning itself,” observed Johnson. “Most consumers are aware of the physical benefits of a good clean, but more and more consumers are turning to cleaning as a way to clear their minds, take a pause from the hectic pace of daily life and use that as a moment of ‘me time.’” Johnson pointed to the new phenomenon of “clean with me” videos has caught fire on YouTube. These videos, which literally take the viewer around a stranger’s home as they clean it, have been viewed more than 200 million times, with more than 5,000 new video uploads in the past few months alone. She told Happi that for P&G brands, sustainability comes to life in everyday moments, like washing laundry and doing dishes. “For example, as more and more people strive to adopt resource-efficient habits, it becomes increasingly important to use products designed to perform in the toughest conditions. If you’re washing clothes in shorter, colder cycles, you need a detergent like Tide, that’s been designed with a specific enzyme to clean in the quickest, coldest wash. If you want to use less water to get clean dishes, you need a product that doesn’t require a pre-rinse, like Cascade, which lets you skip the rinse and save up to 15 gallons of water per load. If you’re using a lower performing product and something doesn’t get clean, chances are you’ll compensate for that by washing it again—this time with more water or more product, driving your footprint up. So that’s why we design products like Tide and Cascade specifically to help save water, time and energy, without sacrificing the clean you need.” At the same time, P&G is aware that the way its products are made matters too. So, the company makes its brands at facilities that use 100% renewable wind power electricity and send zero manufacturing waste to landfill. “We’ve helped the industry tackle important challenges like the creation of a recycling stream for colored PET, and we’re working to find alternatives to plastics, like Cascade cartons made from 100% recycled wood pulp,” said Johnson. Finally, P&G is being transparent about what’s in its products and why. Johnson noted that P&G was one of the first firms to participate in the online SmartLabel system, where you can find information about all of P&G’s fabric and home care products listed. “Today, we working to incorporate more of this information onto our packaging to further our transparency efforts and enable you to make informed choices,” she said. SC Johnson has been the leader in ingredient transparency for years. In September, SC Johnson released its 2018/19 Sustainability Report. During the past year, the company has removed 1.7 million kilograms of plastic from primary packaging. Furthermore, 94% of the company’s plastic packaging is now recyclable, reusable or compostable. Recently, SC Johnson let its membership in the Plastics Industry Association expire. In a statement, SCJ said it strongly believes governments should be able to democratically ban plastics if that’s what its citizens want. “Leaving the Plastics Industry Association was a difficult situation because we respect the work they’re doing on recycling and plastic innovation,” a company spokesperson told Happi. “However, its connection to the American Progressive Bag Alliance became confusing. SC Johnson is committed to packaging innovation and post-consumer recycled content and you’ll see more from us in the future.” Are You in the Loop? Whether startup or multinational, nearly every FMCG company is determined to reduce its packaging footprint. Last year, more than 250 companies, including PepsiCo and H&M, pledged to cut back on their use of plastic, including making all of their packaging recyclable, reusable or compostable by 2025. Packaging is the hot-button issue of the moment and TerraCycle, the creator of Loop, is pushing all the right buttons. Launched in May, Loop is billed as a global circular shopping platform that’s designed to eliminate the idea of waste by transforming the products and packaging of everyday items from single-use to durable, multi-use, feature-packed designs, according to TerraCycle, which developed Loop more than a year ago, introduced the concept at Davos and has expanded from three US states to 11 in six months. Loop is also available in Paris and, most recently, London. “The growth and acceptance has been wonderful,” said Anthony Rossi, VP-global business development, Loop. “We are adding nearly a brand a day.” At press time, Loop offered 150 products and Rossi expected that number to climb to 350 by year-end. So, who’s in the Loop? Well-known companies such as Clorox, P&G, Seventh Generation and Unilever offer an array of cleaners, detergents and personal care products in reusable, returnable, often stainless-steel packaging. Loop delivers products to its members’ doors and picks up the packaging when it’s depleted. Products are reordered online and after seven or eight uses, The Loop process turns positive for the environment, according to TerraCycle. For now, consumers can order products at Loopstore.com, and Kroger and Walgreens are the official retail partners. Loop is just getting started, but there have already been a lot of lessons learned, according to Rossi. “Faster moving products, such as snacks and beverage, create a lot of engagement with consumers,” he told Happi. “On the home care side, autodish pods and all-purpose cleaners have been performing very well.” Getting in the Loop isn’t easy. Suppliers are making heavy investment in packaging and filling lines, but as Rossi notes, “they wouldn’t do it if the reaction wasn’t positive and there wasn’t demand for our products.” Procter & Gamble was one of the first companies to join the Loop program. P&G designed packaging that is both reusable and recyclable for Febreze One, an ultra-durable package for Cascade and a stainless-steel refillable package for Tide Purclean. All three of these solutions are designed for consumer convenience and reuse, and to enable ongoing learning within the new platform, according to Johnson. “While it’s still very early in the test markets, we have seen that consumer appeal increases when the product offering broadens, so we are encouraging more brands to join Loop as we all learn together in this important space,” she said. Coming Next Month A different kind of packaging issue was front and center earlier this year. The household cleaning industry won a key battle in August when the Supreme Court of the State of New York ruled in favor of a lawsuit filed by the Household & Commercial Product Association (HCPA) and the American Cleaning Institute (ACI) against the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (NYSDEC) attempts to force cleaning product manufacturers to disclose chemical ingredients and identify any ingredients that appear on authoritative lists of chemicals of concern on their websites. The Court found that the NYSDEC Disclosure Program is “null and void” and remitted the matter back to NYSDEC with the directive to comply with State Administrative Procedure Act. “It was a huge decision,” recalled Steve Caldeira, president and CEO, HCPA. “Any time you litigate against a state it is a big undertaking.” According to Caldeira, the ruling underscores HCPA’s successful strategy to collaborate with other stakeholders on key issues. “The HCPA has a good reputation of being collaborative and inclusive. Engagement and collaboration is our mantra and we will continue to do so.” At the same time, however, Caldeira observed that the association is willing to go it alone when it involves critical issues. Two years ago, when California passed the Cleaning Product Right to Know Act, HCPA engaged in intense negotiations with NGOs and other stakeholders, when many other associations, were neutral on the issue. HCPA also played a leading role in the reauthorization of the Pesticide Registration Improvement Act (PRIA), which was signed by President Donald J. Trump this Spring and will remain in effect through 2023. Also this year, HCPA earned the 2019 Safer Choice Partner of the Year from the US Environmental Protection Agency. “To win this award is humbling and we are very grateful. It speaks to the vision and mission of our board and the engagement of our membership,” said Caldeira. “We have a lot of big wins, because we have a talented staff, an engaged board and are focused on the right issues.” Of course, more issues are on the horizon. For example, the California legislature adjourned before acting on the Circular Economy and Pollution Reduction Act, which would require all single-use packaging sold in California on or after Jan. 1, 2030 to be recyclable or compostable. HCPA member companies are part of the Alliance To End Plastic Waste, a group made up of some the leading suppliers and marketers in the home came industry. These companies have pledged $1.5 billion over the next five years to solve some of the issues surrounding plastic. “Plastic is an issue that consumers care about and one that we must address,” said Caldeira. “Whatever we can do as companies and trade associations to become smarter and innovate around plastic is important.” During XPand 2019, the HCPA Annual Meeting, several important issues will be in focus. The event takes place in Fort Lauderdale, FL, Dec. 8-11, 2019. The overarching theme of the Annual Meeting is innovation and, for the first time, the HCPA will honor members with its Innovation Awards, which will be granted in five categories—ingredients, sustainability, consumer communication, technology and game-changing innovation. Annual Meeting programming will center on operational excellence, consumer education and sustainability stewardship. There will be sessions on consumer habits, ecommerce, retailer updates, supply chain disruption and diversity. The keynote speaker is Nancy Giordano, a strategic futurist and corporate strategist who has guided transformation projects with The Coca Cola Company, Brinker International, Sprint, Nestle, Acumen, Energizer, Mercedes Benz and many other Fortune 500 companies. On Dec. 11, HCPA will host a Preservation Summit that will feature presentations by Beth Ann Browne of DuPont, Tony Rook and Doug Mazeffa of Sherwin Williams, Petra Kern and Jeff Van Komen of Procter & Gamble, and other key stakeholders to further the discussion about the benefits of product preservation. According to HCPA, the goal of the Summit is to help inform legislators, retailers, decision makers and NGOs about the benefits of product preservation by developing scientific and consumer-friendly data and educational content that can be used to communicate effectively with a range of target audiences. In 2020, HCPA staff will continue to collaborate with other groups to find a solution at the national level regarding ingredient communication. “We will continue to the use the California model for a national solution. Patchwork regulations can be onerous and costly,” observed Caldeira. “We need common sense solutions. We will continue to work with the Grocery Manufacturers Association, ACI and others to find a solution. There are a lot of great things going on, but we have to stay focused, collaborate with NGOs and like-minded trade groups.” The strategy is paying off, as HCPA membership and revenue continue to grow slowly and steadily. During his three years at the helm of the association, HCPA has been rebranded, developed economic data to better tell its story on Capitol Hill and at the state level, updated its strategic plan and and expanded its board and officers. “There is growing interest among companies to have a voice as we expand,” Caldeira concluded. “If you stay stagnant, you get left behind.”

Tom has been named to the 2019 list CNN’s Risk Takers. He’s in good company, as you’ll see if you click on the link.  The air date for Tom’s feature has yet to be determined. In the meantime, you can click on Tom’s picture for a summary of what his full piece will be about.