By Daniel Vaknine, Co-Founder, Gramta EPR&PPWR
Key takeaways:
- “Producer” is a legal role, not just whoever owns the brand, and it changes depending on the state, the sales model, and who’s selling to whom (direct, distributor, or retailer). Getting this wrong at the start makes every later step irrelevant.
- California, Oregon, and Colorado now share the same PRO (Circular Action Alliance), but that doesn’t mean the same rules apply. Covered materials, exemptions, and deadlines still vary state by state.
- The costliest mistake is waiting until the annual report is due to pull packaging data together. Treating EPR as an ongoing process tied to packaging and sales records, rather than a once-a-year scramble, is what really works.
Packaging extended producer responsibility, or EPR, sounds straightforward in principle: companies responsible for packaging help finance what happens to it after use. The difficult part for businesses is rarely understanding that principle. It is working out who is responsible, where the obligation arises, what packaging data is needed, and how that information eventually becomes an EPR report.
Those questions are becoming increasingly relevant to U.S. (and non-U.S.) food manufacturers as packaging EPR programs move from legislation into implementation. Europe provides a useful preview of what the operational side can look like after these systems have had decades to develop. But U.S. manufacturers no longer need to look only to Europe for examples: programs in California, Oregon, and Colorado are already turning many of the same questions into practical compliance work.
The European experience also illustrates an important distinction. The EU now has a common Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation, or PPWR, but packaging EPR remains largely a national process. A company selling packaged food across several European markets can still face different registrations, producer responsibility organisations, reporting structures, and fee systems.
For food manufacturers trying to make sense of EPR, the easiest way to avoid unnecessary complexity is to tackle the questions in the right order.
1. Establish who the producer actually is
One of the first mistakes is assuming that “producer” simply means the company that manufactured the food or owns the brand.
In EPR legislation, producer is a legal role. Who holds that role can depend on the market, the companies involved in the transaction, and how the packaged product reaches the customer.
European Commission guidance provides a particularly useful example involving packaged fruit. A company filling fruit into packaging and selling it to a supermarket in its own country can itself be the producer. If that packaged fruit is sold to a supermarket established in another EU country, responsibility in the destination market can instead sit with the supermarket. If the original company sells directly across the border to the end user, the result can be different again.
The same basic exercise is now necessary in the U.S. because producer definitions and exemptions differ between state programs. In California, for example, SB 54 covers single-use packaging and plastic single-use food service ware, but not every food-related package will necessarily be treated the same way. CalRecycle has specific guidance covering exclusions for certain food and agricultural commodity packaging, so a food manufacturer should check both whether its packaging is covered and whether it is the responsible producer before moving further into the process.
That distinction matters for food companies because one product may travel through several sales models at the same time. A manufacturer might supply domestic retailers, export through distributors, and operate its own online store.
Before calculating packaging weight or looking at fees, map the route to market. Identify the legal entity making the sale, the destination market, the type of customer, and whether another business will place the packaged product on that market before it reaches the end user.
Getting this first step wrong can make everything that follows irrelevant.
2. Map the obligation market by market
Once the responsible producer has been identified, the next question is where it has an obligation.
Europe demonstrates why this needs to be treated separately from the physical product. The same jar, carton, or pouch may be sold unchanged in several countries, but entering another national market can create another EPR compliance process. The same principle increasingly applies state by state in the U.S.
California is a useful example. Under SB 54, Circular Action Alliance, or CAA, is the state’s approved producer responsibility organisation. An obligated producer generally needs to participate in the PRO plan, pursue an approved individual compliance route, or qualify for an applicable exemption. CalRecycle also operates its PEPRS system for registration, data submission, and compliance tracking, while CAA handles much of that process on behalf of participating producers.
Oregon is further along. Its packaging EPR program has been operational since July 2025, and covered producers are required to register with CAA, report the covered products they supply into Oregon, and pay program fees, unless an exemption applies. Colorado has also moved into implementation: CAA is the approved PRO there, its final program plan was approved in December 2025, and producers are now operating under the program.
For a food company selling nationally, the practical lesson is simple: “U.S. compliant” is not a useful status. California, Oregon, and Colorado may involve the same PRO, but the legal definitions, covered materials, exemptions, and program requirements remain state-specific.
That does not mean a business should build an entirely separate compliance system for every country or state. The better approach is to separate the information that stays constant from the rules that change.
The packaging specification can often remain centralized. The legal analysis, registration, reporting categories, and deadlines may need to be determined market by market.
For a food manufacturer, a simple market map can therefore be extremely useful. For every country or state where packaged products are sold, record which legal entity sells there, how the products reach the customer, who is expected to be the producer, and what local EPR setup is required.
The map should also change when the business changes. Opening a new direct-to-consumer market, replacing a distributor, or restructuring the sales chain can alter the answer even when nothing about the package itself has changed.
3. Build packaging data that can actually be reported
Food packaging makes EPR data particularly important because one finished product can contain several distinct packaging components.
Take a relatively simple food product. It might use a plastic tray, sealing film, paper sleeve, and label. Several units may then be packed into a corrugated case, wrapped for transport, and placed on a pallet. An EPR system may not treat all of those components in the same way. The company therefore needs more than the total weight of the finished pack.
A useful packaging dataset should be able to identify the individual packaging components, their materials and weights, the product or pack configuration they belong to, and the period during which that specification was used. Sales data can then determine how many units entered each relevant market. This is especially important because packaging specifications do not remain static.
A film may be lightweighted. A cap may change material. A supplier can replace a tray. A multipack can be redesigned. A product may move to another pack size.
If packaging data is collected only when the annual EPR report is due, those changes can be surprisingly difficult to reconstruct. A better process is to update the underlying packaging record when the packaging itself changes. That turns EPR reporting into an output of packaging and sales data rather than a separate annual data-collection project.
4. Complete the local compliance setup
Only after the producer, markets, and packaging are understood does it make sense to complete the administrative setup. Depending on the jurisdiction, this can involve registering as a producer, participating in a producer responsibility organization, appointing an authorized representative where required, and establishing who will submit the recurring packaging reports.
Europe provides a useful warning against assuming that one process works everywhere, but the emerging U.S. programs now make the same point. A food manufacturer may use CAA for California, Oregon, and Colorado, for example, without the underlying state requirements becoming identical.
For a company entering several markets, the goal should therefore not be to memorize every EPR system. It should be to create a repeatable process for entering one.
A practical market checklist can contain the responsible company, producer registration, relevant PRO or scheme, representative where necessary, reporting frequency, internal owner, and next deadline. Once that structure exists, adding another market becomes a defined compliance project rather than starting the research from scratch.
5. Report first, then understand what drives the fee
EPR fees receive a great deal of attention because they are the most visible cost of the system. But comparing fees too early can be misleading. A published price per kilogram only becomes useful once a company knows that it applies to the correct market, producer, packaging category, and scheme.
Fee structures can also become considerably more detailed than a simple price for “plastic,” “paper,” or “glass.” European systems increasingly distinguish packaging according to characteristics such as recyclability, material combinations, or other design features. The same underlying idea is increasingly relevant in U.S. programs as producers begin financing the systems and packaging design becomes part of the policy discussion.
For a food business, this creates a useful connection between compliance and packaging design. Once reporting is based on reliable packaging data, the company can see which packaging characteristics are actually driving its EPR cost. That information can then become one input when packaging alternatives are evaluated.
The EPR fee should not determine a food package on its own. Shelf life, food safety, product protection, manufacturing requirements, and overall environmental impact can be far more important. But when several technically suitable packaging options exist, the EPR treatment is becoming another economic factor worth understanding.
Treat EPR as a recurring business process
The most avoidable EPR problems often come from doing these steps in the wrong order.
Starting with the fee before establishing producer responsibility can mean analyzing a cost the company does not actually owe. Registering before mapping the sales chain can put the wrong legal entity into the process. Waiting until a reporting deadline to collect packaging data can leave the business trying to reconstruct a year of packaging changes retrospectively.
A more reliable sequence is straightforward:
Producer -> market -> packaging data -> local setup -> reporting and fees.
Different jurisdictions will still have different rules. That is part of EPR is unlikely to disappear entirely.
What can be standardized is the company’s own process.
Food manufacturers already manage structured information about ingredients, suppliers, products, packaging specifications, and sales. Packaging EPR increasingly needs to become another connected part of that information flow. Europe’s experience shows how complicated EPR can become when national systems evolve independently. California, Oregon, and Colorado now show that the same state-by-state questions are becoming practical issues for U.S. producers as well.
For U.S. food manufacturers entering EPR for the first time, the lesson is increasingly concrete: treat EPR less like an annual regulatory form and more like an ongoing packaging data process.
Daniel Vaknine is Co-Founder of Gramta EPR and PPWR compliance platform. He works with businesses navigating packaging producer responsibility across EU markets and writes practical guidance on producer obligations, registration, packaging data, reporting, and cross-border compliance.
