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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Environment
Zoe Wood

Can a Waitrose shopper’s gaze boost loose produce and cut plastic waste?

A woman wears eye-tracking glasses in a Waitrose fresh produce section with a sign that reads 'Pick your own: choose loose fruit and veg' behind her
The eye movements of test subjects are analysed by researchers as they wander around shopping. Photograph: Martin Godwin/The Guardian

With thick black frames and hidden cameras, the glasses look designed for espionage or the metaverse but instead the eye-tracking headgear is being deployed to get inside shoppers’ heads as part of the drive to cut plastic packaging from the weekly food shop.

It is an unlikely scene. Hooked up with the glasses a shopper is being tailed around a Waitrose produce department by a researcher carrying a large tablet that displays live footage of them picking up banal things such as potatoes, apples and bananas.

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