Eco-Friendly Home Essentials Grove Collaborative Takes on Kohl’s, Meijer, Giant Eagle
On Thursday, San Francisco-based Grove Collaborative — known for its eco-friendly home essentials — announced the expansion of its retail presence at Kohl’s, Meijer and Giant Eagle.
Since the success of its Target launch last year, Grove Co., the company’s home brand, which includes everything from bamboo toilet paper, scrub brushes, cleaner tabs, laundry pods, room scents, compost bags and more, doubled its product assortment in all 1,900 Target stores and on target.com.
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The three latest retailers in the mix will carry Grove Co.’s cleaning line (including its plastic-free cleaner concentrates, soaps and reusable dispensers), with dedicated end caps and educational displays speaking to Grove Co.’s zero-waste mission and products. The company, already a certified B Corp, launched in 2016 to help with the estimated 250 billion pounds of plastic ending up in landfill each year.
Boasting unicorn status, Grove Collaborative went public last month on the New York Stock Exchange by way of what’s called a special purpose acquisition company (where the existing public company, Richard Branson’s Virgin Group Acquisition Corp., acted as a shell for the then private company) instead of a traditional IPO.
Expressing excitement for the brand’s plastic-free home essentials, Stuart Landesberg, Grove Collaborative’s cofounder and chief executive officer, believes the expansion is a “testament to the evolving consumer products landscape,” as one in which consumers are demanding fulfillment of sustainable options in every facet of their homes and wardrobes. Landesberg said the company hopes to motivate retailers to “move away from plastic” and make better products.
Already, the partnering retailers have pledged to eliminate single-use plastics from operations by 2025, in the case of Giant Eagle and Target, and reduce landfill waste and increase sustainable sourcing practices as with Meijer and Giant Eagle. Specifically, under Target’s Target Forward agenda, the retailer aims to be the market leader for sustainable products and ensure 100 percent of its owned brand plastic packaging be recyclable, compostable or reusable by 2025.
Their aims must fall in line with new legislation, as state legislators (like California’s big-time plastic extended producer responsibility bill signed into law earlier this month) are acting on plastic waste. Though California’s newest law gives producers until 2032 to make right on their packaging, many retailers (Walmart, CVS Health, Target) were already banding together on pre-competitive initiatives like the circular “Beyond the Bag” pilot, foreseeing the shifting landscape.
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