How to Sell Packaging to Brands Under PPWR and UK EPR

To sell packaging to brands in the EU or the UK right now, sell a review before you sell a product. Offer a short check of a brand's current formats against the EU's Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation, known as PPWR, and the UK's packaging EPR fees. Send it to the people who own the format, and let that review turn into a trial and then an order.

The reason is timing. PPWR has applied across the EU since 12 August 2026. UK disposal fees for household packaging now rise or fall with a red, amber or green recyclability rating. Both rules attach a deadline or a cost to formats brands already use, so a brand that ignored your catalog last year has a reason to look at its packs this year.

Most supplier outreach still opens with the full range; the sections below start from the review instead. If you have not settled on a target market yet, begin with how to pick a market before any outreach goes out.

What changes for packaging suppliers on 12 August 2026?

From 12 August 2026, the PPWR applies across the EU and sets rules for how every pack sold in the EU is made and what goes into it. Packaging has to be reusable or recoverable, and the Commission says every pack will have to be recyclable by 2030.

The regulation itself, Regulation (EU) 2025/40, has the detail suppliers need. The full text on EUR-Lex is long, so here are the rows that change buying decisions:

The PFAS row comes from the Commission's packaging waste page and its announcement, the last row from the announcement, and the rest from the regulation text as published. The grading is still being filled in: the Commission has to adopt design-for-recycling criteria by 1 January 2028 and a method for judging recycling at scale by 1 January 2030.

Read the table the way a brand does. Only the PFAS row carries a hard date of 12 August 2026. The weight, grade, recycled content and ban rows land between 2030 and 2038, and that is exactly why reviews start now. A new format has to pass material tests, run on the line and wait for a product refresh. A brand that wants compliant packs on shelf before 2030 is choosing its suppliers in 2026 and 2027.

So the first thing a brand needs from a supplier is help reducing risk: lighter packs, less empty space, no restricted substances, and materials that will grade well.

What does UK packaging EPR change in year 1 and year 2?

UK packaging EPR is already running. Organizations that supply or import packaging may have to register, report packaging data and pay fees. Larger organizations also fund recycling by buying recycling evidence for each material separately, and a surplus in one material cannot cover a gap in another. Waste disposal fees have applied since October 2025 to packaging used in homes, packaging usually thrown in street bins, and glass drinks bottles bought for home use.

Year 1 fees held steady. When producers resubmitted better data, PackUK found a funding shortfall, but it kept Year 1 disposal fees unchanged, and the government agreed to close the gap as a one-time step. The scheme is set to provide £1.4 billion to local authorities in the 2025/26 financial year.

Since 1 January 2025, large producers of household packaging have had to assess recyclability with the Recycling Assessment Methodology, or RAM. It rates packaging red, amber or green across 8 material categories, and the rating affects the disposal fee. Some packaging is red automatically, for example when it has integrated electrical components or batteries, or certain PFAS are added on purpose.

PackUK's illustrative Year 2 fees show how wide the gap is. Red sits at about 1.2 times amber, and green gets a discount:

These are illustrative 2026 figures. PackUK said they were likely to change and that confirmed fees for 2026 to 2027 would replace them, so treat the sum below as an illustration and use the confirmed rates before you quote a number to a brand.

Now run the sum a finance team will run, using those illustrative rates. A brand placing 100 tonnes of household plastic packaging a year pays 100 x £545 = £54,500 at the red rate and 100 x £415 = £41,500 at green. That is £13,000 a year on one material at one brand. A lighter pack cuts the bill again, because the fee is charged per tonne.

That number is what reopens supplier conversations. Packaging used to be a unit price on a quote. Now each format carries a fee line that moves with its design, and whoever owns that line wants to know which supplier can move it from red to green.

Who decides on a packaging switch inside a brand?

Before my team and I build any list, we go back through the deals a company has already closed and find out who actually approved each one. For a packaging switch, expect that check to point to more than one person.

Strip out bare titles like Manager, Assistant or Associate, because on their own they match almost anyone in the company. Keep the titles that are real for the niche. "Packaging development manager" is a real title. "Manager" is a guess.

Here is the buying group you are most likely to meet at a consumer goods, food or drink brand:

The decision rule: treat the packaging development manager and the category buyer as one decision until a past deal proves otherwise. The first decides whether a format changes. The second decides who supplies it. Pitch only one of them and the other one stops it later.

Write to each in their own language. The technologist wants data, the buyer wants cost, the sustainability lead wants a better grade.

If the brand uses a co-packer, ask on the first call who owns the spec. Sometimes the brand decides and the co-packer runs it. Sometimes the co-packer chooses suppliers for several brands at once, which makes it a target account of its own.

How do you sell the meeting, not the product range?

A first message should sell the meeting, never the service.

For a packaging supplier, the meeting is a packaging review against the new rules. Take up to three formats the brand sells today. Check each one against the PPWR rows above and, for UK volumes, against its likely RAM color. Then show what a switch would mean for weight, grade and fee band. The brand leaves with a red, amber and green picture of its own packs, whether or not it buys from you.

Make the review your only offer in outbound for now. Not the range, not the review plus a design service plus a print upgrade. The case for it is in why one offer to one audience beats a service menu.

I say this even in an article about cartons: plenty of companies that think they have a lead generation problem actually have a packaging problem, meaning the packaging of the offer, which decides whether outreach lands.

What to leave out of the first message:

1. The full product range and material list
2. Machine lists and capacity figures
3. A page of certifications
4. Prices
5. Sustainability adjectives with no grade or number behind them

Here is a made-up illustration for a UK board converter writing to a snack brand. Only use a proof line like the second sentence if it is true for you:

"Hi Sarah, your multipack uses a mixed board and film carton, a format worth checking against the RAM now that Year 2 fees depend on its color. We moved a similar snack brand from a film-lined carton to mono-material board. Open to a 30-minute review of three of your current packs against PPWR and the fee bands?"

The review call is also where you qualify: annual volumes per format, the date of the next product refresh, and who signs.

Which packaging changes are brands buying first?

Packaging moves on the brand's calendar, never yours. A new format needs material tests, a line trial and a slot in a product refresh. So the easiest accounts are brands already changing something: a relaunch, a reformulation, a new production line or a new co-packer.

Inside those accounts, work in this order:

1. Food-contact packs that relied on PFAS barriers. The restriction from the table above already applies. Paper and board food packaging with grease resistance is the obvious place to look.
2. UK household packs likely to rate red or amber. The color-based fee starts with Year 2 and comes back every year, so the saving keeps paying.
3. Mixed-material formats at risk of missing grade C by 2030. For laminates and multi-layer structures, the replacement has to match the barrier, so start those reviews early.
4. High empty-space packs. Grouped, transport and e-commerce packaging, plus oversized gift cartons.
5. Single-use mini formats in the scope of the 2030 bans.

Start each account small. One SKU, one line trial, ideally a format you have already converted for someone else. A brand says yes to a trial far more easily than to a panel change, and a trial that works on their line is strong proof for the next format.

Expect some of these accounts to move slowly, because a packaging switch tied to a product refresh is one of the slower decisions a brand makes. In B2B, calls can come in the first 30 days while the deals behind them close 4 or more months later, so I never judge outbound on month one.

How do you find brands that need to change packaging?

In our campaigns, the list starts from a client's current and past customers, and only then do we find lookalikes.

For you, that means brands that match your customers in category, size and country. If you supply two chilled ready-meal brands in the UK, the next target list is other chilled ready-meal brands of that size, in the UK first and then in one more country.

Then look for signs that a brand is already changing packs:

1. Product launches and relaunches announced on the brand's site or LinkedIn
2. Job posts for packaging technologists or packaging development roles
3. New sustainability claims or recyclability targets on the packs or in reports
4. Visible pack redesigns on shelf or in online stores
5. A new co-packer, distributor or retail listing that forces a format change

Which channel should you use in which market?

A converter's channel choice depends on where its brands sit, so country rules come before copy.

In Germany, Austria and the Czech Republic, we do not use cold email without a compliant basis, and we run the outreach on LinkedIn there instead.

My decision rule by market:

In the markets where email is allowed, it carries the follow-up for people who rarely check LinkedIn.

Whether you may email someone depends on the rules where that person works, so look up each market before a sequence starts, and the cold email law by country guide is a place to begin. This is not legal advice.

What should a packaging supplier send before the call?

Put the proof in the body of the email, never in an attachment nobody opens. For packaging, the proof that belongs there is narrow:

1. Formats you converted, named by type ("film-lined carton to mono-material board")
2. RAM colors you helped move, for example amber to green
3. Line trials passed at a brand or co-packer
4. Brands you supply, named only with their permission

One line of that beats a capability deck. Keep the email short and human, the way a technical person writes to another technical person.

Your profile is part of the proof. A packaging development manager who gets your request will likely look at your LinkedIn page before replying. Say on the profile who you help, with which formats, and what changed for them.

What not to explain before the call: the full test report, the machine park, the company history. Those belong in the review, when the brand has asked for them.

If you are new to this market and have no packaging conversion to point to yet, leave the proof line out rather than invent a case study.

What does a practical packaging outbound checklist look like?

Run through this before anything gets sent:

1. Target: every account has one named trigger, such as a relaunch, a red-rated format or a PFAS-exposed food pack.
2. Roles: at least two people per brand, usually the packaging development manager and the category buyer.
3. List hygiene: every address verified before anything is sent.
4. Offer: a review of up to three current formats against PPWR and the RAM, and nothing else.
5. Proof: one line of real proof, or none until you have it.
6. Channel: chosen per country from the table above.
7. Meeting: the brand knows what it leaves with, a red, amber and green view of its own packs.

An illustrative case, invented for this guide. A UK board converter supplies two snack brands. It lists 40 snack and confectionery brands of similar size in the UK and the Netherlands, then keeps the ones showing a trigger: two announced relaunches and one hiring a packaging technologist. At each brand it finds the packaging development manager and the category buyer.

Each gets a LinkedIn request first, then, where the country's rules allow it, a short email offering a review of three current packs against PPWR grades and the Year 2 fee bands. One development manager replies. On the call, the converter shows that two of the three formats could move to mono-material board, and walks the buyer through the fee per tonne on their own volumes. The next step is a line trial on one SKU.

If PPWR or the UK fee bands are starting to come up with your brands, I would be glad to help plan the first approach. You can book a call here.