As plastic bag fees become more widespread in the Chicago area, one chain is switching it up by offering a 10-cent credit when shoppers use reusable bags.
After Batavia City Council voted in November to implement a 10-cent bag fee at many of its stores, health food chain Fruitful Yield decided to get ahead of the new policy and encourage its shoppers to bring their own bags by doing just the opposite.
“It came to fruition based on a lot of things happening in Illinois, especially with the Batavia checkout baggage charge,” Steven Cooling, Fruitful Yield customer relations manager, said. “That started the conversation on, ‘What can we do?’ We wanted to go the opposite direction and see if we can start rewarding the customers who are using the reusable bags and maybe start changing the minds of a lot of the customers on best practices to use less plastic.”
The initiative began as an Earth Day special, originally running from April 22 to the end of May. With the program bringing in about 35 redemptions a day, the Fruitful Yield team decided to stick with it.
“It only took us a couple days to really go through the numbers and figure out that was what was best not just for us, but for the customers as well,” Cooling said. “If this is something that we can get the customers to buy into, it’s best for everybody because we can use a lot less plastic.”
Batavia’s 10-cent paper and plastic bag fee was approved by the city council in November and officially hit stores 5,000 square feet or larger July 1.
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