Markus Mueller, sustainability regulatory expert, MM Group, explores what food and drink brands should be asking packaging suppliers
A packaging quotation gives you a price. It takes a better conversation to establish what that price delivers. For a food or drink producer, packaging needs to protect the product throughout distribution and perform reliably on the packing line. A lower-cost specification offers little value if it leads to damaged goods or production delays.
Understanding the true cost of packaging means looking beyond the purchase price to how the pack performs in practice, the resources it uses and the costs that arise when it falls short. Five questions can help buyers make that assessment.
What are we asking the pack to protect?
Start with the product and its journey. What could damage it? How long must it remain in good condition? Will it encounter chilled storage, moisture, repeated handling or long distribution routes?
A food carton and a spirits gift box have different jobs. Even within one category, the right specification depends on the product, format and route to market. Ask suppliers what testing supports their recommendation and whether it reflects your conditions.
Where packaging contacts food, request the relevant safety and suitability documentation. Product protection should be an agreed requirement before material reduction becomes a target.
Does using less material improve the whole operation?
Reducing unnecessary material is a sensible objective. The useful comparison, however, is between packs delivering the same required performance.
Ask what a proposed change means for stiffness, packing speed, rejects, pallet configuration and transport damage. A lighter carton that needs additional protective packaging elsewhere may simply move material use around the supply chain.
Request production trials and compare results against the existing specification. Include setup losses and downtime alongside material weight. For a smaller producer, a pack that runs reliably on existing equipment can matter as much as a reduction in the price per thousand.
What can you show us about the material’s origin?
Sourcing information should relate to the material being supplied. Ask suppliers to explain the fibre composition and provide the documentation behind any certification or recycled-content statement.
If recycled content is quoted, what percentage does it represent, which component does it cover and how was it calculated? If certification is referenced, does its scope cover the specified material?
These questions help buyers maintain a usable evidence trail. They also give marketing colleagues a firmer basis for explaining packaging choices without stretching a statement about one component into a claim about the whole pack.
What happens after the customer has finished with it?
Consumers care about this. In Pro Carton’s 2026 survey of 5,000 adults across five European countries, 64% identified ease of recycling as a priority. That is a European finding, rather than a measure of Scottish behaviour, but it reinforces the importance of clear disposal information.
For fibre-based packaging, ask whether the finished construction has been assessed, including coatings, adhesives, windows and other components. The 4evergreen alliance’s 2025 Recyclability Evaluation Protocol provides an approach to assessing technical recyclability across different recycling processes.
Technical performance is one part of the answer. Buyers should also ask which collection and recycling routes accept the pack in its intended markets, and whether consumers need to separate components. Designing a pack to be recycled does not guarantee that it will be collected and recycled everywhere.
Can we explain the benefit precisely?
A supplier statement should leave buyers knowing what has improved, compared with what, and on what evidence.
For a material reduction, ask for the previous specification and calculation. For a carbon comparison, ask about the method, boundaries and whether both options perform the same function. Keep financial savings, material savings and environmental impacts distinct. Evidence for one does not automatically prove the others.
At MM Group, we believe the strongest packaging decisions bring procurement, production, technical and marketing teams into the same conversation. Agree the pack’s job, test the options and record the evidence.
That gives a food or drink brand a clearer view of value, and a packaging decision it can explain with confidence.
