Sainsbury’s has become the latest supermarket to share its support of a cancer campaign inspired by the late Dame Deborah James. The retailer has pledged its support to raise awareness of symptoms and signs of bowel cancer by making an important change to their loo roll.
Like many other stores, Sainsbury’s will be placing Bowel Cancer UK’s logo and list of bowel cancer symptoms across ranges of own-branded paper toilet roll packs, which will be rolled out across all Sainsbury’s stores and online starting from October 2022.
It comes as part of Bowel Cancer UK’s #GetOnARoll campaign in collaboration with Marks and Spencer, which aims to help millions of people across the UK know how to spot the signs of bowel cancer and encourage them to contact their GP if they experience any symptoms.
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The idea originated from M&S employee Cara Hoofe, who was diagnosed with bowel cancer in 2016. She submitted the idea via the retailer's CEO suggestion scheme, Straight to Stuart, and kickstarted a movement that can help potentially save lives.
M&S partnered with the charity in May, pledging to add symptoms of bowel cancer on all their own brand loo roll, which would hit shelves in autumn.
On June 21, household brand Andrex joined the campaign, committing to adding the information to their full range of loo roll packaging, followed by Aldi, who are also adding a QR code to over 70 million loo roll packs a year.
Two days later, Morrisons got on board, followed by Waitrose, who hopes to raise awareness of bowel cancer symptoms for customers. The same day, Asda committed to adding symptoms of bowel cancer on all ranges of own-brand toilet tissue packs, adding posters in toilets in their offices, and placing symptoms posters on store shelves to drive awareness.
Towards the end of June, Deborah - who was diagnosed with bowel cancer in 2016 - announced a new partnership with Tesco. In a bid to raise awareness about the signs and symptoms of bowel cancer, the information is set to be displayed on their Luxury Soft loo roll. The supermarket, along with WEPA UK, will also be donating £300,000 to Bowelbabe Fund. The cancer campaigner sadly lost her battle with the disease just days later on Tuesday, June 28.
Bowel Cancer UK are now calling for the Co-op and Lidl to join the campaign, encouraging shoppers to tweet the supermarkets and ask them to get involved.
But that’s not the only update Sainsbury’s have made to the weekly shop product. Sainsbury’s has announced the launch of its new own-brand double length toilet rolls, designed to help customers reduce plastic waste at home.
The new multipack rolls include double the number of sheets on each roll compared to the retailer’s standard offerings and on average use 30 per cent less plastic. The products are available across Sainsbury’s ‘Super Soft’ and ‘House 247’ ranges .
The double toilet rolls are estimated to save a total of 84 tonnes of plastic and 164 tonnes of cardboard from card cores - half in comparison to the usual rolls.
The new double toilet rolls are now available in-store and online, costing from £1.75 for a multipack of two double rolls which equates to the same quantity of sheets in a four-pack of standard toilet rolls. Lasting longer and now lower in cost, the toilet rolls also take up less space and therefore fewer lorries will be required for supplier transportation.
All toilet roll plastic packaging is recyclable. Customers can simply bring it to one of Sainsbury’s front-of-store flexible plastics recycling points. The points are available in all Sainsbury’s UK supermarkets, helping customers to correctly dispose of flexible plastic packaging.
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