The challenge
Marks & Spencers (M&S) is a FTSE250, flagship UK retailer, operating globally. M&S has made substantial sustainability commitments through its Plan A initiative and strategy, which includes reducing its packaging footprint. As part of this strategy, M&S rolled out Fill Your Own (Refill Instore) across 13 shops in 2020-21. The team at M&S quickly identified the challenges of operating a circular system, ranging from staff time required to complete the necessary paperwork, to the challenges of overseeing accuracy and management of the scheme from Head Office. Reath was selected as the technology partner to digitalise the process and provide a blueprint for the refill model to scale, safely and efficiently across the store footprint. The Reath system is currently live in M&S Edinburgh flagship store, powering their first Refill In Store initiative in Scotland. It is being rolled out across the full Fill Your Own footprint in Q1&Q2 2022.
What we did
- Trackers were added to the bulk containers.
- Bulk containers are filled with bulk product.
- Scan the bulk containers at key stages in the process.
- M&S use the data to grow, scale and optimise reuse/refill.
The results
- 4,420 hours saved — an internal study showed that using Reath saved 5 hours per week of staff time, which totals 260 hours per store, per year and 4,420 hours across the 17 store Refill In Store footprint.
- £41,990 cost saved — this time saved adds up to £41,990 GBP per year across the 17 store refill in store footprint.
“Reath is so easy to use! Their technology makes our packaging free product offering scalable and allows us to track the environmental impact of package free goods across our stores.”
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