Bag it!
The new Loblaw Superstore in Milton has shelved plastic shopping bags in favour of reusable, recyclable bags
The hottest accessory this summer? Reusable bags. Report on Business magazine associate editor David Fielding discussed the huge success of Loblaws’ little black number recently with the Globe and Mail.
While Loblaws was the last grocer on the block to release one, it saucily dubbed its bag “Canada’s greenest.” The claim: While most chains offer a product made from recycled material, Loblaws’ bag is also recyclable. Customers are encouraged to return them to the retailer when they’re worn out so they can be used to make more bags. Loblaws’ little black number soon became the summer’s must-have item, proving that Canada’s greenest bag may also be the country’s greatest marketing strategy.
Here are the questions David Fielding answered:
Globe and Mail: Thank you David for joining us today and taking our readers’ questions. We have quite a few to get through and I thought we’d start off with a reader who lived in Adelaide, Australia where the plastic bag was phased out. He wonders if that’s a possibility in Canada.
RB: I lived in Adelaide, Australia which has outlawed the bag for two years now. That is great that the Loblaw bag is recycleable. In Adelaide, the grocers actually gave them out for free in the beginning, while others gave them free if purchased you purchased a certain amount in groceries. 

We actually brought our ‘green’ bags up from there and find them better; our bags are slightly wider and longer, which allow more items in the bags.

One thing that must happen if this is the path we are going down is that cashiers need to be retrained in how to bag the items. It is a different animal in bagging compared to the plastic bags. It is the old ‘paper bag’ days but now some kind of new material. Also, not all cashiers credit you the penny per bag saved. Maybe upping that to say 5 cents and free bags can provide some incentives for habits to change.

Hopefully, then next we can start working on are those awful cigarette buts people through out the window.
David Fielding: Hi RB. All great questions. I agree with you that there’s still a lot of confusion at the counters around the subject of bagging. I’ve even heard from one person who was told, rather unceremoniously, that it wasn’t the cashier’s responsibility to fill competitors’ bags. (This did not happen at a Loblaws.) Perhaps it’s a great opportunity to return to the halcyon days of baggers at the end of the counter. I wonder if customers would pay a few cents extra on their receipts for such a service.

As for giving the reusable bags away, I disagree. I think it’s important to place a value on these bags, if only a dollar (which is what most stores are selling them at). If the bags had no retail value, and customers knew that they could get more for free with every shopping trip, there would be little incentive to bring them back. And that, to my mind, is the bigger hurdle.
SM: Good Afternoon David. My view is that the success of the Loblaws black bag does not justify calls for regulation to force similar initiatives on other companies, instead it proves that corporate social responsibility and ‘green marketing’ prove effective enough, without laws that would undoubtedly bring the slew of unwanted side effects that is the hallmark of almost all government interventions. Can you comment?
David Fielding: That’s a great comment. I agree that legislation is not necessarily the solution. And I am in full agreement that an effective campaign of “green” marketing will do more for changing consumer habits than a new law would. The success of Loblaws bags this summer is that people appear to be using them (I’ve seen them everywhere from the farmers market to hip shopping districts in Toronto). A colleague of mine has taken to calling the bags “LuluLoblaws,” a reference to the ubiquity of the popular yoga clothing brand, Lululemon. The moniker raises the question: Are reusable bags just another faddish product that we will obsessively consume for a season, or will they represent a paradigm shift?
DW: I think the public needs more encouragement, such as a charge for each plastic bag. And make it such that after 10 plastic bags we now have the cost for the black bag covered. The second point is for a company to come along that makes a garbage/recycling bi specifically for the plastic grocery bag. Then we will use them in place of the ones we buy separately to do that job. Most people don’t just throw out the bags.
David Fielding: In Ontario, No Frills grocery stores (a subsidiary of Loblaw Group of Cos.) actually charges the customer, I think, $0.05 for each plastic bag required. Customers have the chance of bringing their own bags/granny carts and skipping the cost or using the surplus produce boxes available at the front of store. As far as I know, it’s a system that’s been in place for many years there. However, I’m not sure a system like that would appeal to all customers. The result at some No Frills stores is that they appear haphazard, and I’ve always thought some customers would be put off if they hadn’t been properly made aware of the charge.
GB: While the summer’s hottest accessory may be reusable bags, it would be interesting to see how often people actually use them on a regular basis. Loblaws has great marketing strategies, with their ‘green bag’ being no exception. Besides being visually appealing, it warms the cockles of one’s heart to know that the bags themselves are recyclable. 

Recent newspaper blurbs have noted other bags on the market, including designer ‘green bags’ costing in excess of a hundred dollars; different strokes for different recyclers I guess.

Whichever bags are purchased, they will only cut down on waste if people remember to take them to the grocery store every time they visit. Part of the waste solution would be to phase out plastic bag otherwise, reusable ‘green bags’ may just turn out to be another way to line some company’s pockets and perhaps even add to the landfill problem.
David Fielding: I think you’ve hit the main vein there. Certainly, the slick design of Loblaws’s little black bags invites criticism that reusable bags may be trendy today and trash tomorrow. A survery performed by Air Miles (concerned a competitor’s bags) found that the return rate was abysmally low. As a journalist, it would be wonderful to know whether Loblaws is keeping records of how many bags come back, and not just how many are sold (over 3 million so far). I’m actually with Scott on the issue of phasing plastic out—let it happen naturally, through good marketing and consumer participation.
MK: I love these bags. They made the right decision in keeping the design simple. It’s either A&P or Sobey’s that has the massive kiwi covered bags…those are awful. With the Loblaws bags, you are more likely to use them for non-grocery shopping.

This re-usable bag as a fashion accessory was big around 3 years ago in Australia with a similar design as Loblaws, but green. Apparently they even made it to the fashion runway. The bag was universal, with different chains having their logo. Bags featuring chains such as ‘Liquor-lo-mart’ were very popular. I brought back a few of them 3 years ago and people at the time were amazed with how cool they were.
David Fielding: I agree that the overall design of the Loblaws bags must be contributing to their success. Personally, however, I fall to the other camp. The larger, more rigid bags at other chains (Dominion/A&P, Sobey’s, etc.) are more practical for my shopping needs. You also touch on another point that critics have raised: The idea of manufacturing bags for this purpose is redundant as there are no shortage of bags out there that you can already reuse. In fact, production of these bags may even negate their own environmental promise: I’ve been told that even the Loblaws bag has a “Made in China” tag on the inside. Consider how much of a footprint that bag would have if it’s produced in a factory before being loaded onto a belching ship to cross the pacific, then tucked into the back of a transport trailer to get to the store. A canvas bag from your house only has to travel the few blocks in the trunk of your car.
JJ: I think the re-usable bag idea is wonderful because it forces us all to think about the environment, each time we go to the grocery. In fact, yesterday, I was caught without my ‘little black’ bag and a new feeling swept over me that I was negligent in my duty to reduce waste. I hope more shoppers do the same and indeed the next wave should be at other stores such as the hardware or liquor stores where mostly smaller items would fit these same bags. 

I know one store is trying to double up this allegiance thing to their debit cards such that you get points on this card if you use the bag. Cut to the chase, big grocers, just take real money off the bill for each bag used.
David Fielding: I know the feeling you speak of, and for that reason, I feel like the marketing around the Loblaws bag is having a positive effect. I know that some stores do offer a direct discount on the bill. It isn’t much mind you: I recently saved something like four cents on a $100 receipt. Perhaps they can do better.
LW: You must be joking right? The introduction of a transportation device for my groceries is more important than having stores stocked by competent people, and having the products there that we are accustomed to buying. I have pounded away at these seemingly trivial things as I have seen my Superstore purchases decline from (seasonally adjusted) $600.00 a month to $100.00 a month. And what about a card, like every other supermarket retailer, where you accumulate points for your loyalty. It’s no longer good enough to feel like I am privileged to be doing business with a Weston.
David Fielding: There’s no doubt you feel strongly about the subject, but you do raise the spectre of some very important questions surrounding Loblaws’s position in the marketplace. The company has had a rough run over the past few years, especially in the aisles where they’ve had trouble keeping the shelves stocked with the products customers expect. There have been promises of improvement, but also signs that distribution problems persist. Will a funky new bag alleviate customer frustration? Not likely. Will it keep Loblaws top-of-mind for customers while they work out their kinks? Maybe, for a while anyway.
DF: I have purchased several ‘green’ bags and like the thought of not using plastic. When you go through the self checkout can you load the bags on the tray to be filled or will the machine register the weight of the bags and disqualify the purchases. So far all I do is fill the plastic bags and then empty them into the black bags after paying.
David Fielding: Sounds like you’re very determined not to use plastic, Douglas. I put your question to one of the spokespeople at Loblaws, Danielle Rouleau, and she assured me that the black bags should work at the self-checkout counter.
RB: Throughout history retailers have supplied bags at no cost to the customer. The exceptions being during wars and other types of national emergencies. Why is the customer expected to purchase bags now? At one time retailers supplied at no charge large brown paper bags, which were very good. Today these brown bags could be made from recycled material at a relatively low cost to the retailer. I can see no reason to buy these bags, bring back the paper ones, this time made from recyled paper.
David Fielding: Your comment touches on a highly debated issue in the retail world: which product is the most environmentally friendly, paper or plastic? Without the experts behind me, I don’t think I can definitively say paper trumps plastic. One of the benefits of plastic over papers is the relatively low production costs and the small environmental footprint a single bag produces (but don’t forget, mind you, that stores hand out a million a minute worldwide). Paper recycling requires a fair amount of water and other chemicals to do the task. Some believe paper bags are best left in the past. As for your comment about paying for the bags, I truly think it’s a matter of semantics. You’re paying for the bags either way — it’s just that in the past, the company factored the cost into the price of your eggs and now they’re turning it over to you. I think it’s an important distinction. After all, no one minds throwing out a dozen plastic bags if they’ve run out of room to store them. You won’t throw out a bag that you’ve chosen to spend a dollar on.
CL: What would you suggest Loblaws to do to make this marketing strategy more effective? I bought one of these bags too, but I used it for something else, not for shopping at Loblaws. I see others doing the same thing. The plastic bags still have their value, and I re-use them too. Some goods are better off in a plastic bag, if they contain liquids or are sticky/wet to begin with, such as the popsicles from the freezer section. If I’m only buying something dry and well-packaged, then maybe I’ll bring the green bag in.
David Fielding: It’s fun to play armchair marketing QB now and then. I believe the best marketing around this is subtle marketing. The companies don’t need to paste their logo across the bags—in fact, I think consumers appreciate a bag that they can carry around town without feeling like a billboard or pledging allegiance to one grocer. So while the trend toward high-priced third party bags (such as Hermes’ $960 (U.S.) silkypop bag and countless hipster canvas totes) might actually a good one. People will carry around a bag that they like and identify with (especially, if it cost a months salary on minimum wage!). Of course, the question is, what is being marketed, the green concept or the store?

As to your second point, there will always be a need for plastic at grocery stores. For instance, Loblaws made news this week by opening the first “bagless” grocery store in Milton, Ont. There are no plastic bags available in the store, except for deli items where meats such as chicken must be separated for health reasons.
CC: There is no question that plastic grocery bags are a problem. The question is will replacing plastic bags with canvass bags actually work on a large mass-produced scale? I can think of lots of things that sound practical but if you were to attempt to introduce them out into the real world that’s another story. What upfront kind of investment would be required on the part of the customer? How much environmental damage are we going to create mass producing these bags? Why aren’t grocery bags at least biodegradable? How many jobs are going to be lost in the plastic bag market? Is it realistic to have consumers take 60 bags out of the truck of their car when they go grocery shopping? I have a feeling that many people would find that rather inconvenient and time-consuming. Even though it’s really not that big of a deal, people will perceive it as such. Small canvass bags may be convenient for small grocery lists but what about those purchasing large amounts of food at one time? Having said all that, I offer a potentially better solution: Why not sell a ‘Canvass Shopping Cart Kit’ consisting of four or five large canvass bags hung from hooks made for easy lifting, loading and sorting. Less bags, less washing, less period. The bags themselves could have merchant’s advertising on them. In other words, these kits would be inexpensive—paid for by Hienz Ketchup—or whatever. Advertising would find it because of the number of people would hold on to their canvass kit for years. Need lunch food ideas? Look at your neighbour’s cart. 4 bags x 4 sides - that’s 16 potential advertising spots! FREE CANVASS SHOPPING CART KITS FOR EVERYONE!
David Fielding: I hope you’re not giving these ideas away for free. As an aside, the cart kit you describe has some similarities the the very first concept for the modern shopping cart, which incidentally dates back to the Great Depression. And you’re not wrong that some people will perceive the bag issue as a personal afront. What personally changed my perception on the issue was not the environment benefits but the personal benefits. On an average grocery shop, it was not uncommon for me to cart home eight or nine separate plastic bags. Using one the larger bags from one of Loblaws’s competitors I know carry as little as two reusable bags back from the store. I carry both Loblaws and others, and use the Loblaws one just for delicate produce. I do think you’re right that grocery stores—already struggling against giants such as Wal-Mart—cannot afford to foot the cost of mass-producing the bags. They’ll flip that over to you. As a side note, people shouldn’t underestimate the effect a company such as Wal-Mart can have on consumer climate. In some ways, Wal-Mart is the company to watch. They’re announcement that all of their suppliers must reduce package by 5% over five years could have a profound effect on the amount of plastics being used in food retail. Say what you will about the “Bully of Bentonville,” the company is powerful.
Globe and Mail: Well, we’ve run out of time. So thanks so much David for joining in.
David Fielding: Thanks for inviting me. And I wanted to say that the questions today were challenging and forced me to think about this issue from all angles. Fun.