September 29, 2026

Packaging EPR Demands a Food Science Response

Producer responsibility rules are reshaping material choices, but food safety, shelf life, and package performance set the practical limits of reduction, recycling, and reuse.

Illustration of EPR, Circular Process Showing Waste Collection, Recycling, And Manufacturing

Food Technology Magazine

Extended producer responsibility (EPR) is changing food packaging decisions, but it cannot be treated only as a waste-management issue. Reducing material, adding recycled content, or moving to reusable formats can affect barrier performance, migration, sanitation, allergen control, and shelf life. Food scientists therefore need a direct role in compliance.

Colin Preston, managing consultant with the Health Sciences Product Safety and Stewardship team at Ramboll Management Consulting, examined those trade-offs in “Impact of EPR on Food Science & Food Packaging,” an individual presentation at IFT FIRST Annual Event and Expo. His central point was that food scientists and packaging engineers must make packaging decisions together.

What EPR Means for Food Packaging

EPR makes producers responsible for products through the postconsumer stage. Packaging programs typically require companies to report the materials and quantities they place on a market and help finance collection, recycling, composting, or reuse systems. Fees and design requirements are intended to favor formats that are easier to manage after use.

The reporting scope can extend beyond the package a shopper sees. Depending on the jurisdiction, companies may need data on ingredient and bulk packaging, shipping containers, pallets, labels, caps, and packing tape. EPR is therefore an enterprise data challenge involving procurement, suppliers, packaging, regulatory, operations, and finance.

Requirements vary by jurisdiction. California’s SB 54 sets 2032 targets that include a 25% reduction in single-use plastic packaging and foodservice ware, a 65% recycling rate for those materials, and recyclable or compostable design for all covered packaging. The European Union’s Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation began applying Aug. 12, 2026, with requirements involving recyclability, recycled plastic content, waste prevention, reuse, empty space, and substances of concern in food-contact packaging.

“Change is coming for packaging,” Preston said. “And even if your background is not in packaging, it will affect your products, it will affect food.”

There’s been, I think, a critical gap between food science and packaging engineering that needs to be bridged.

Colin Preston

Ramboll Management Consulting

Food Safety Sets the Design Limits

Source reduction shows why compliance cannot be left to a packaging or regulatory team. Thinner films and container walls may use less material, but they can also deform during distribution or reduce protection against moisture, oxygen, grease, and temperature. Before lightweighting or substituting a material, companies need to define what each package does and the minimum performance the food requires.

Recycled content and alternative materials also require validation under actual use conditions. High-temperature, fatty, or greasy foods can present migration challenges, and a material that works for one product may not provide the barrier or mechanical durability another needs.

A more recyclable, reusable, or lower-material package is not an improvement if it increases spoilage or creates a new food safety risk.

Designing for recycling creates additional trade-offs. Flexible packaging may need to move from mixed multilayer structures toward monomaterial designs, while paper packages often need coatings to protect food. Those additions can interfere with recycling. “Switching to paper doesn’t automatically make things simple for recycling,” Preston said.

The package also has to work after consumers use it. Food residue may keep a technically recyclable meat or deli tray out of the recycling stream. Reuse and refill systems introduce cleaning, hygiene, and allergen-control requirements. Selecting a recyclable, compostable, or reusable format therefore requires an understanding of disposal behavior and infrastructure as well as material science.

How Food Companies Can Prepare

The practical starting point is a cross-functional inventory: what packaging enters each market, what every layer and component does, which regulations apply, and which product or process changes might allow a more circular design. Changes to formulation or processing may make a food more stable and reduce some of the protective burden on the package, but the revised system still needs validation.

“There’s been, I think, a critical gap between food science and packaging engineering that needs to be bridged,” Preston said.

A lower-material, recyclable, compostable, or reusable package is not an improvement if it increases spoilage or creates a new food-safety risk. For food companies responding to EPR, Preston said, “maintaining safety and quality is still the number one key.”