Giant Food and Loop Partnership Brings Sustainable Solution to DC-Metro Shoppers

Washington, D.C.-area Giant Food shoppers this fall will now be able to purchase everyday food and household products in durable, reusable containers, thanks to a partnership with Loop, the circular reuse platform developed by TerraCycle, Giant Food said Wednesday.

"Giant is committed to taking sustainable actions that reduce plastic waste from our landfills and improve our environment,” said Diane Couchman, VP of category management, non-perishables at Giant Food, in a statement.

Through Loop, shoppers can buy and replenish Loop-ready products in refillable, reusable containers found in branded displays in participating Giant stores. Once finished, shoppers return the empty containers to a Loop Return Point at Giant. From there, the containers are sent to Loop to be sanitized, then returned to brands to be refilled and returned to the store for future purchase.

“We are excited to partner with Loop, a global leader in eliminating waste, to offer our customers a program that allows them to shop their favorite products and help our environment,” Couchman said.

Loop’s goal has always been to grow, scale and be accessible to consumers around the world said Tom Szaky, founder and CEO of TerraCycle and Loop.

“With world class retailers, like Giant, bringing Loop to their physical brick and mortar locations, we are giving consumers what they’ve been asking for since Loop was introduced in 2019–the ability to purchase the products they use every day in durable, reusable containers, with the convenience of shopping at their local market," Szaky said in a statement.

Ecolab Inc., a cleaning and hygiene solutions and services company, is consulting with Loop for all the on-site design and equipment, as well as the chemistry of the cleaning processes, Giant said in a statement.

Driven by consumer demand, sustainable packaging is sweeping across grocery stores as shoppers are interested in putting the care of the planet in their cart along with their food.

Consumers want transparency in sustainable packaging, Rachel Kenyon, SVP for Fibre Box Association, Itasca, Ill., told WGB. “They not only want to know where their food comes from, but how it’s packaged and what impacts that packaging has on the environment,” she said.

Giant Food, an Ahold Delhaize brand, was founded in 1936 and operates 164 supermarkets in Virginia, Maryland, Delaware and Washington, D.C.