Packaging data collected for EPR compliance should be treated as a strategic business asset rather than a compliance exercise. By connecting packaging information across suppliers, procurement, product development, and logistics, retailers can gain supply chain visibility that enables better sustainability decisions, identifies cost efficiencies, and builds resilience against future regulatory changes.
- EPR fragmentation: Seven U.S. states have different EPR laws with varying requirements, definitions, and fee structures, making unified compliance data impossible without state-specific tracking.
- California's high stakes: SB 54 requires 30% plastic recycling by 2028, escalating to 65% by 2032, with penalties up to $50,000 per violation for non-compliance.
- Data reveals trade-offs: Connected packaging data helps retailers understand how material choices affect transportation efficiency, recyclability, waste, food safety, and consumer perception simultaneously.
- Competitive advantage: Organizations treating packaging data as a business asset rather than compliance exercise improve efficiency, meet sustainability goals, and respond faster to regulatory changes.
- Supply chain integration: Siloed packaging data prevents visibility into unnecessary materials, difficult-to-recycle formats, and inefficiencies that compound across suppliers and processes.
For many U.S. food retailers, packaging data has become yet another headache. Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) laws force businesses to collect increasingly detailed information about the packaging they place on the market, including its materials, weight and what happens at end-of-life.
Most retailers, already spinning multiple plates in a tough operating environment, treat EPR purely as a compliance exercise. But collecting packaging data and having true visibility across the supply chain are not nearly the same thing.
EPR shifts some of the financial and organizational responsibility for managing packaging waste from public waste systems to the businesses that place packaging on the market. The problem is that the information being collected to meet those obligations often sits in the same silos that have made packaging so difficult to manage in the first place.
For many retailers, there is rarely a unified view of the packaging they use; where it comes from, what it is made of, or how easily it can be recycled or disposed of.
This lack of transparency is a symptom of supply chain complexity and fragmentation that have been entrenched for years, with different suppliers, materials, and processes operating independently across the business. As a result, inefficiencies tend to go unnoticed, building up until they become, in this instance, the retail market’s problem.
Businesses are forced to bring together data sources they have never even considered connecting before. However, EPR should be viewed as a catalyst rather than another compliance burden.
By linking packaging data across suppliers, procurement, product development, and logistics, retailers can finally build a transparent supply chain that turns compliance data into better decisions on materials, waste, and overall efficiency.
The heart of the challenge
The United States does not have a single national packaging EPR system. Seven states have enacted EPR laws, all with different definitions, requirements, fee structures and implementation timelines.
For a retailer operating across multiple states, that means “EPR data” cannot necessarily be treated as one uniform compliance dataset. Businesses need to understand what packaging they are placing on the market, where, and under which rules.
California’s SB 54 shows how quickly this is becoming business-critical. The law is among the most ambitious EPR policies in the world. By 2028, plastic-covered material must meet a 30% recycling rate, rising to 40% by 2030 and 65% by 2032. By 2032, covered single-use packaging and single-use plastic food service ware sold in California must be recyclable or compostable, as defined by CalRecycle. Non-compliance can trigger enforcement action and daily penalties of up to $50,000 per violation.
These rules apply beyond retailers with a physical California footprint, covering any producer selling in the state, including online sellers. Fees will be "eco-modulated," meaning they are designed to reflect specific environmental and end-of-life impacts of different materials rather than charging the same rate across the board. For example, recyclable packaging will cost less to place on the market than hard-to-recycle formats.
For fast-moving grocery businesses with thousands of SKUs, manual data collection and estimates will not wash with regulators. Retailers need to get this right, and fast.
So yes. Quality data really does sit at the heart of this challenge. Retailers need accurate and auditable packaging information from the earliest stages, not only to comply with legislation, but to understand their packaging portfolio in a way that supports better sustainability and cost decisions. You cannot improve the sustainability of your packaging, or find cost-efficiencies, if you do not know what you are using.
Visibility through data also enables retailers to answer some essential questions. Where are we using unnecessary material? Where are we relying on materials that are difficult to recycle? Where are packaging formats creating avoidable waste? Are different suppliers using different approaches for similar products? Where could packaging design be improved?
Without being able to answer these, sustainability and any associated costs become total guesswork. There is no room here for anything other than complete accuracy. Accurate data is the catalyst for better decisions. But it does not make packaging sustainable by itself; it gives teams the information they need to understand the trade-offs and identify opportunities to improve sustainability.
Getting this right also makes grocery retailers more resilient to further regulatory or supply chain changes.
Isolated decisions are bad news
Ultimately, the goal is for packaging decisions to be viewed and understood holistically. A choice made in one part of the supply chain can have consequences elsewhere, creating a whack-a-mole situation that requires careful calibration and data oversight to manage. After all, material selection can affect transportation efficiency, waste generation, recyclability, cost, and resource use. And it must still work functionally for food hygiene while avoiding any form of consumer backlash.
So, the most sustainable option isn’t always obvious. Reducing material can be positive from a resource-use perspective, but not if it compromises product protection or shelf life and leads to more food waste. A lighter pack may reduce material use and transport weight, while a change in dimensions could affect warehouse handling.
Connecting packaging data across suppliers, procurement, product development, and logistics allows retailers to see these trade-offs clearly rather than making decisions in isolation. This approach also supports a “right-first-time” packaging development process, which reduces rework and speeds up time to market.
The result is a more joined-up approach to packaging, where sustainability decisions can be considered at the beginning of the process with the wider supply chain in mind.
Turning data into better decisions
Done well, EPR can act as the catalyst for this shift. It gives retailers a much stronger reason to collect packaging data and, more importantly, to use it to identify opportunities to improve resilience across the supply chain.
Organizations that treat packaging data as a business asset, rather than a compliance exercise, will be better positioned to improve efficiency, meet sustainability goals and respond to future regulatory requirements.
But act soon, because the world is refusing to wait.
