TOMRA is a global leader in reverse vending technology: the machines that turn an empty bottle back into a usable resource. In 2025, TOMRA expanded its Middle East presence, establishing permanent offices in Riyadh and Abu Dhabi to support the region’s circular economy ambitions, including Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 target of diverting more than 90% of waste from landfill by 2034, a goal made more urgent by the Kingdom’s per capita bottled water consumption, estimated at more than 200 litres a year, among the highest rates in the world.
Tamimi Markets has built its reputation over decades as one of Saudi Arabia’s most innovative retailers: from opening the Kingdom’s first modern supermarket in 1979 to consistently being first to bring new formats and offerings to Saudi shoppers. That same instinct, to lead rather than follow, is what shaped Themari, Tamimi’s loyalty programme. It was never going to just reward what’s in the basket. Recycling is one of the everyday habits Tamimi wanted it to recognise too.
Where do we fit?
Tamimi needed this fast, and it needed to feel seamless: no separate app, no delay between the bottle drop and the reward, nothing that felt like a workaround bolted onto Themari.
Because Themari already runs on SMASH, this wasn’t a new integration project from zero. It was a SMASH Connect job. SMASH Connect is an integration capability within the SMASH Framework that lets a retailer already on our platform extend their programme to external partners and hardware, without reinventing it each time. Our PHILOSHOPERS built this towards a simple and exciting experience for the consumer: connecting TOMRA’s recycling machines with Themari’s rewards programme, in real time.
The Themari Experience
At PHILOSHOPIC, we believe technology shouldn’t feel like “tech”. It should just work. Here’s what that looks like in practice: a shopper walks up to a TOMRA machine, scans their Themari app or enters their mobile number, deposits their bottle, and taps “Finish.” Their points land in their Themari balance before they’ve even left the machine. Behind that one bottle-drop, TOMRA’s hardware and Themari’s rewards engine are talking to each other in real time; the shopper never sees any of it, they just watch their balance go up. Not yet a member? The machine invites them to become one on the spot.
This is what TOMRA calls an “incentive-based return system”: recycling rewarded through points rather than a cash deposit. And it’s already handling real volume: at one Tamimi store alone, shoppers have recycled more than 20,000 bottles this way. And the number keeps growing.
What this says about SMASH
Counting points is table stakes. Every loyalty system can do that. The harder problem, and the one worth talking about, is what a rewards programme can reach beyond its own four walls: a hardware partner, an external system, a habit that has nothing to do with a shopping basket. That’s what SMASH Connect adds on top of core loyalty and rewards: the ability for a retailer already on SMASH to connect new partners and use cases through a repeatable integration foundation, without a bespoke build each time.
TOMRA isn’t the first partnership SMASH Connect has carried for Tamimi, either. The same capability already connects Themari to modern payment methods, brings new employees onto the Themari programme with seamless onboarding, and feeds data out to external partners, each one a different connection, built on the same platform rather than as a one-off project.
Looking Ahead
For any retailer weighing what a loyalty programme could take on next, this is a glimpse of what becomes possible once it’s built on a platform designed to keep engaging, not just counting. Tamimi is one chapter in that story. Yours could be the next.
Simple. Exciting. Connected.
Source: TOMRA (April 29, 2025). TOMRA expands presence to the Middle East. Available at: https://www.tomra.com/reverse-vending/media-center/news/2025/middle-east-presence