PPWR – Current Challenges and Surprises

by Food Cluster Hamburg

Guest Article by Andreas Lützen, ZENK Rechtsanwälte, Hamburg


Since August 12, 2026, the new EU Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation (PPWR) has been in force. To this day, many companies still lack the information they actually need for implementation. Surprisingly little has been written about the regulation so far, and what has been written is often limited to a list of deadlines. There is naturally no administrative or judicial practice yet. Anyone who reads the regulation itself will also come across passages where the text says something different from what one's first intuition suggests. Sometimes the text of the regulation also says something different from the European Commission's guidelines and FAQs on the PPWR. This guest article picks out six points that repeatedly come up in advisory practice - from the boomerang effect with private labels to the Green Dot, which is making a comeback inside a QR code.

1. Private Labels: Is Resistance Crumbling?

Under the PPWR, the "producer" of a packaging is whoever manufactures it, or has it manufactured, under their own name or trademark. For retailers' private-label products, the widely held view is that the retailer itself is the producer. Whoever can enforce their brand on the packaging can, in effect, also determine all other packaging characteristics - meaning they are the one "having it manufactured." Several major retail chains fundamentally disagree and assign the producer role to their suppliers instead.

This resistance may currently be softening. Some retailers are now acknowledging their role (belatedly). This is not, however, a breakthrough for contract manufacturers. It remains unclear whether this reversal applies to all private-label products. And in parallel, retailers are presenting supplementary agreements and service contracts that shift the bulk of the compliance work back onto the supplier. The contract manufacturer is expected to prepare the technical documentation, collect the evidence from its own upstream suppliers, and draft the declaration of conformity ready for signature. In the end, the retailer merely signs it.

Legally, this is generally possible. The role itself and the responsibility toward authorities cannot be shifted, but the work and the costs can. Suppliers, however, have gained little from this. Responsibility toward the outside world lies with the retailer, but the burden remains with the contract manufacturer - along with the question of liability if evidence later turns out to be unreliable or a declaration of conformity proves defective.

2. "Where Applicable" Does Not Mean "Optional"

The PPWR requires three pieces of information from the producer: name or trademark, postal address, and, "where applicable, electronic means of communication" through which they can be reached. This information may appear in plain text on the packaging or be provided via a QR code.

At first glance, the phrase "where applicable" reads like a free choice. Many companies understand it that way and forgo including an email address in their labeling. Even large retail companies' style guides for private-label products make no provision for electronic contact details on the label.

The English version says something different. There it reads "where available." The obligation is therefore only waived if no electronic means of communication exists at all - a case that practically never occurs. All language versions of an EU regulation are, in principle, equally authoritative. But when language versions diverge, the outcome is often determined by the purpose (reachability) or by the "true" intent of the regulator and the PPWR's working language was English.

In my view, a website address (www.company.com) does not suffice as an electronic means of communication. A domain is not a means of communication but a reference point: one can learn something about the company there, but cannot reach it directly. The safe route is therefore an email address, clearly indicated on the label itself or provided via the QR code.

3. PFAS: Strict Limits, Weak Proof

Since August 12, 2026, packaging in contact with food may no longer be placed on the market if it contains PFAS above certain thresholds. The limits are low: 25 ppb for an individual PFAS substance, 250 ppb for the sum of PFAS, and 50 ppm for total PFAS. There is no transition period.

This sounds like it calls for laboratory analysis of every single piece of packaging. In practice, a complete PFAS analysis can hardly be carried out. The substance group comprises several thousand compounds, and one only finds what one specifically searches for. The costs are also not negligible.

Here, a note in the European Commission's FAQ - easily overlooked - helps. The Commission refers to a study according to which the thresholds are, as a rule, only exceeded where PFAS were intentionally used. In my view, it follows that where there is no intentional use, the thresholds are typically met. A corresponding supplier confirmation (NIAS – not intentionally added substance) may, under certain circumstances, then make laboratory analysis unnecessary.

Two caveats remain. The FAQs bind neither authorities nor courts, even though both tend to orient themselves by them in practice. And this reasoning only helps where a NIAS confirmation is actually plausible. For grease-resistant papers and non-stick coatings, in particular, further questions arise. There, a closer look is warranted, and a one-sentence NIAS confirmation is unlikely to hold up.

4. The Packaging Nobody Feels Responsible For

A common scenario in food production: a company sources raw materials from a third country. They arrive in film, sacks, or cartons, are unpacked and processed, and the packaging is discarded.

Under the PPWR, the "importer" is whoever places packaging from a third country on the Union market. "Placing on the market" means making it available on the Union market for the first time. And "making available" presupposes that someone hands the packaging over to another party. That is precisely what does not happen here - only packaging waste is being handed over, to waste management.

Taken literally, then, the company does not become an importer and would therefore not need to ensure that the packaging meets PPWR requirements. Taken to its logical conclusion, this would mean: one could bring an unlimited amount of non-compliant packaging into the EU and dispose of it here, as long as one only unpacks it oneself and does not pass it on further. That cannot be the intended outcome.

The regulation catches part of this gap elsewhere. Whoever unpacks packaged products without being the end user can become a "producer" for purposes of extended producer responsibility. Disposal costs then do land with the unpacker after all. But for the conformity of the packaging itself, the gap remains, since the producer and the importer - not the "producer" under extended responsibility rules - are responsible for that.

Nobody should rely on this loophole, though. Authorities will certainly try to enforce importer obligations, and the purpose of the rule gives them good arguments for doing so. Anyone who does not want to fight this uphill battle should adopt the importer role as a precaution.

5. Two Addresses on the Package, One of Them Useless

Another scenario involving third countries: an EU-based company has a product manufactured under its own brand in a third country. This makes it the producer, bearing full responsibility for the packaging. Its name appears on the packaging.

Import into the EU is handled by a different company - a distribution partner or a sister company within the group, for instance. That company is the importer. And the PPWR requires the importer, too, to state name, address, and electronic means of communication on the packaging.

Two addresses would then appear on the package. The importer information makes sense where the producer is based outside the EU and is not reachable by authorities. In that case, the importer serves as the anchor within the internal market. But if the producer is based in the EU and is already listed on the packaging, the second name adds nothing. The regulation provides no exception for this.

Legal connoisseurs will know that there are statements from the Commission and from Germany's Central Packaging Register Office suggesting that the entire supply chain upstream of the producer should be treated as fictionally nonexistent. Under that view, for a domestic producer, the import step could be "notionally disregarded." Whether that applies here is unclear, though. And, without going into detail: these statements are not convincing on the merits.

An interesting side detail: under Article 15(6), the producer may always move its information into a QR code. The importer may only do so if placing the information on the packaging itself is not possible.

6. The Green Dot Disappears - and Returns Inside a QR Code

From February 12, 2027, a symbol indicating participation in an extended producer responsibility scheme may only be provided via a QR code or another standardized digital marking technology. This affects, above all, the Green Dot ("Grüner Punkt"), which has been printed on packaging for more than 35 years. It may then no longer appear openly printed.

The trademark holder of the Green Dot has responded with the "DigiDot." The DigiDot is a QR code that leads to location-specific sorting and disposal information. At its center, the Green Dot is depicted graphically - clearly visible to the human eye.

This is an interesting solution, since, taken literally, the symbol does indeed appear "inside" a QR code. Whether authorities will accept this remains to be seen. One could also read the provision to mean that the symbol should no longer appear visually on the packaging at all, but only after scanning. Under that reading, the DigiDot in its current form would be vulnerable to challenge.

These six points show that the PPWR does not yet fully align with practice in several respects. Guidelines and implementing acts will gradually clarify some of this; authorities and courts will clarify the rest. It remains an interesting area to watch.


About the author: Andreas Lützen is an attorney at ZENK Rechtsanwälte in Hamburg. He advises food manufacturers, fillers/packers, packaging suppliers, and retail companies on food and packaging law.

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