The key to increasing the use of reusable packaging in supermarkets

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The Dutch Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management’s Reuse Roadmap 2030 for Supermarkets sets out a shared vision for scaling reusable packaging in supermarkets by the end of the decade. Developed with supermarkets, industry bodies, and NGOs, it outlines how a coordinated, cross-sector system could work in practice, and the role government, business, and regulation might play.

Key Takeaways

• The preferred model is industrial reuse, with standardized, centrally pooled packaging used by multiple producers and supermarkets, supported by shared infrastructure for return, cleaning, and redistribution.
• Four key perspectives shaped the Roadmap: systemic change, packaging standardization, consumer behaviour, and legislation – each essential for a national-scale reuse system.
• Two main pathways were identified: a voluntary approach without legal targets (starting with a single product category pilot) and a regulated approach with mandatory reuse targets, linked to EPR fees and container standardization.
• Participants agreed that consumer convenience, retailer commitment, and environmental performance would be decisive for adoption. Return infrastructure may need to extend beyond supermarkets as the system grows.
• The national government could play a central role by setting standards, absorbing early-stage financial risk, mediating central pool management, and ensuring a level playing field.
• CEO-level commitment from supermarkets, expanded coalitions including manufacturers, and adjustments to competition law were seen as crucial to making collaboration possible.
• International examples – from Canada’s coalition for scaled reuse to Ocado’s QR-enabled packaging and Unilever’s refill pilots in Asia – highlight how such systems could work beyond the Netherlands.

Conclusion
The Reuse Roadmap 2030 positions industrial reuse as the most practical and scalable model for supermarket packaging, but achieving it will require alignment across regulation, infrastructure, and market players. Whether through voluntary pilots or legally mandated targets, success depends on consumer-friendly systems, strong retailer and manufacturer buy-in, and robust government support. The learnings could help shape not just Dutch policy but wider European and global approaches to reuse.

At the end of 2022, the Dutch Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management (IenW) began an initiative titled the ‘Reuse Roadmap 2030 for Supermarkets’ involving various supermarkets and organisations. In this edition of The Brief, we outline the main pathways identified by the participants and consider how the project’s learnings could impact the structure of supermarket reuse schemes beyond a national level.

Facilitated independently by SUPZero, the Roadmap includes possible steps that the supermarket sector, producers, and adjacent parties can take to achieve more reusable packaging in supermarkets by 2030, suggesting a systemic, cross-sector change alongside the steps being taken by individual parties through reuse pilots, in line with upcoming international legislation.

The Ministry of IenW invited all Dutch supermarkets to join the voluntary coalition to create a joint vision for a cross-sector approach to reuse. The group expanded to include Verpact (the implementation organization for producer responsibility in packaging), the Kennisinstituut Duurzaam Verpakken (KIDV; Knowledge Institute for Sustainable Packaging), and the Federation of Dutch Food Industry (FNLI).

The Ministry says that over the course of the project, the perceived importance and urgency for a joint approach to reuse changed, partly due to the final European Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation (PPWR). Supermarkets and umbrella organizations wanted more clarity about the final legislation before giving further thought to potential solutions and supermarkets focused on the implementation of deposits on cans, recyclable packaging and the use of recyclate. The results from the second phase prompted the Ministry to assess additional future measures around reuse.

After phases 1 and 2, the Roadmap presented a shared vision of industrial reuse of supermarket packaging, a sketch of the ecosystem, and guidelines for the paths forward with and without legal reuse targets.

Developing a cross-sector reuse system

The Reuse Roadmap used the ‘typology of reuse models’ from the Ellen MacArthur Foundation (EMF) to define its understanding of reuse. Phase 1 of the project saw four overarching perspectives emerge, with the first being ‘systemic’ - raising questions about the functions needed to organize a cross-sector reuse system, how it differs from the current linear operation and which existing and new stakeholders should play a role.

Second was standardization, which explored the degree of standardization needed for the ecosystem to run optimally, including packaging standards, common incentives for high rotation, and a central pool manager. Consumer behaviour was another perspective, considering how to account for the customer and how to involve them in the new system.

The fourth main perspective involved legislation and regulations, such as which legislation is necessary to support such an approach and how the government could effectively promote reusable packaging in supermarkets.

Industrial reuse as the ‘ideal approach’

The reported consensus among partcipants was that the ‘ideal approach’ to collectively organize supermarket packaging reuse was industrial reuse, where standardized, centrally pooled reusable packaging would be filled in advance and used interchangeably by producers and supermarkets. A shared infrastructure would be used for return transport, washing, and redistributing.

Customers would be required to pay an incentive and return the empty packaging at collection points or when an online order is delivered. The participants noted that if the quantity of reusable packaging grows, expanding the return infrastructure with return points beyond the supermarket would be critical.

Referring to the Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s typology of Reuse Models, the shared vision is cited as a combination of “Return on the Go” and “Return from Home.”

The role of national government

A working session on legislation and regulations involving market players yielded suggestions including all actions around reuse counting towards reuse targets, regardless of the EMF model used; mediating as the national government in central pool management; and setting and facilitating standards as the national government.

Potential roles for the national government include absorbing risks such as early-stage costs during the start of the system, imposing obligations to ensure a level playing field, helping to establish frameworks and standards for a cross-sector reuse approach; providing accountability for manufacturers and supermarkets and connecting upstream and downstream packaging issues.

Implementing supermarket reuse

Phase 2 of the project focused on the learning needed to implement the system at a national level and across the sector. According to the Ministry of IneW, participants desired to await further developments in the PPWR before investing in further design work, to ensure reuse efforts aligned with new regulations. This resulted in interviews with participants instead, involving Albert Heijn, Jumbo, PicNic, FNLI, and Verpact.

A joint vision for industrial reuse

The participants’ joint vision for industrial reuse involves prioritizing consumer convenience, a collective pool and shared infrastructure and standardization of packaging. Topics requiring standardization include return infrastructure, package cleaning and secondary packaging/crates. Agreement is needed on collection points and processing, infrastructure organization and permitted products per packaging.

The initiative states that products need to be traceable and there needs to be agreement on where scanning occurs in the chain to detect breakage/loss. Deposit amounts, labelling and consumer information also need consideration.

Two potential pathways were identified: a voluntary pathway without reuse targets, and a pathway with legal reuse targets. Where there are no new regulations on reuse, participants indicated a voluntary approach has the best chance of success with a “joint commitment” intention statement.

A voluntary pathway without reuse targets

In this pathway, a pilot would be launched for a single category with A-brands and private labels from all supermarkets. Standards would need to coordinate with existing or emerging international standards. Defining strategies for key system-wide issues would also be required with the help of specialists, such as the governance and organization of the cross-sector pool, a standardization strategy and a financing strategy.

A pathway with legal reuse targets

In a scenario with legal reuse targets, the participants identified consumer acceptance, supermarket acceptance and environmental impact of the system as key points for setting any potential reuse policy. Initial ideas for reuse targets included focusing on one category (such as glass jars) then expanding to others; connecting reuse targets to Extended Producer Responsibility for packaging; earmarking part of the EPR packaging fees to finance joint reuse infrastructure; and mandating standardization including uniform container sizes and deposit amounts.

‘CEO-level commitment’ needed for shared approach

Finally, the supermarkets’ recommendations to the national government included ‘CEO-level commitment’ for a boardroom-level decision in favour of a shared approach to reusable packaging, with a concrete target such as an intention statement; enlarging the supermarket coalition with manufacturers and addressing competition law so that retailers can coordinate effectively without legal concerns.

Implications for international reuse initiatives

The Reuse Roadmap also mentions international initiatives from the market, such as PR3 for for reusable packaging (USA), the French project on industrial reuse coordinated by CITEO, the coalition for scaled reuse in Canada involving national government, supermarkets, and NGOs) and the UK Refill Coalition.

Last year, Polytag implemented Digital Link QR codes into Ocado Retail’s reusable packaging, connecting consumers to instructions for refilling and returning their products. Over sixty Ocado food, drink, and household product ranges featured a Digital Link QR code which can be scanned with a smartphone, directing consumers to a landing page to provide specific product information.

More recently, Unilever helped to pilot refill solutions at local markets and supermarket chains across Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, and Indonesia – targeting convenience, control over product quantity and price, and an overall reduction in flexible plastic sachets. Described as ‘user-friendly’ and ‘cost-effective’, the machines dispense Unilever’s Dove, Sunsilk, Sunlight, and Lifebuoy brands in ‘varying amounts’ and claim to cut down on costs while ‘offeri[ng] the premium experience of prefilled bottles’.

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