Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) is the regulation most brand owners are still treating as an admin problem. Report the data. Pay the fees. Move on.
That approach will cost you more than you think, and it’s one of the reasons we think the brief you give your co-packer needs to change.
What EPR Actually Means for Your Packaging Decisions
Under EPR, producers are required to report on the type, weight, and recyclability of every packaging format they put on the market, and pay fees that are directly modulated by how recyclable that packaging is. The less recyclable, the higher the fee. The better the RAM rating, the lower the liability.
Which means that a format decision made at the briefing stage now has a direct line to your cost base. Not just in production, but in compliance fees.
Most brands don’t realise how much that changes the conversation they should be having with their packing partner.
Where We Come In
At Glowcroft, we don’t just run the line. We have an in-house design team and materials specialists who work alongside our packing operation, and that combination matters more now than it ever has.
When a brand brings us a brief, we can look at the proposed format and ask the question most co-packers won’t: is this the right format for where the regulation is going, and what will it cost you if it isn’t?
That might mean identifying that a current substrate carries a poor recyclability rating and suggesting an alternative that performs the same way on the line but reduces your EPR liability. It might mean redesigning a pack structure so it hits a better RAM rating without changing the consumer experience. Or it might mean nothing needs to change, but at least you’ve had the conversation before the format is locked in, not after.
This is what having design capability and packing expertise under the same roof actually delivers. It’s not about making things look better. It’s about making decisions that hold up commercially, operationally, and now, from a compliance perspective too.
What to Check If You’re Evaluating Co-Packers
If you’re in the market for a new co-packer, or questioning whether your current one is giving you the right level of support, EPR is a useful lens.
Ask whether they can tell you the recyclability rating of your current formats. Ask whether they flag compliance implications when you’re briefing new products. Ask whether they have anyone who can look at your packaging structure and suggest a better alternative, not just run what you send them.
A co-packer who can answer yes to those questions is a different kind of partner. They’re reducing your risk, not just your unit cost.
The Commercial Reality
The brands that will use EPR to their advantage aren’t the ones with the best compliance teams. They’re the ones with the best co-packing relationships – partners who are close enough to the brief to catch problems early and offer solutions that work in the real world.
The brands that get the most from a co-packing relationship are the ones who treat their packer as a partner, not a service. EPR is just the latest reason why that distinction matters. At Glowcroft, that conversation starts at the brief, not after the format is locked in.
Dan Richards, Commercial & Marketing Director
