About this article
Loes van Os, lecturer and researcher at HAN University of Applied Sciences, maps out where the supply chain is genuinely making progress, where the real bottlenecks remain, and what it will take for brands and their partners to move in the same direction. Read the conversation about where the friction really lives, and what it takes to move past it. In collaboration with Bunzl Retail & Industry.
When HAN University of Applied Sciences approached Bunzl Retail & Industry to partner on research into the food packaging supply chain, Loes van Os took the lead. As a lecturer, researcher, and Master’s student in Circular Economy, she spent months working with Bunzl teams and a broad mix of chain partners mapping where decisions get made, where they stall, and why. Verive sat down with her to learn more about her findings.
The challenge
Verive: What challenge were you trying to solve?
Loes van Os: The research question started broad: How can Bunzl Retail & Industry become more future-proof, and help build a more future-proof packaging chain? But along the way it became more specific. We consistently found that the real barrier wasn’t developing new materials. They already exist. The question became: Why aren’t these materials scaling? That led us straight to decision-making in the chain, because that’s where most of the friction lives.
To understand that, we needed to hear from the whole supply chain — not just one part. That’s why we brought together perspectives from Bunzl colleagues across different operating companies, retailers and supermarkets, packaging suppliers, food producers, recyclers, industry organisations, and experts on bio-based materials for seven Design Thinking sessions. In one of the final sessions, we validated our proposed directions with these partners directly.
Sitting in the same room, with different priorities and different ways of reading the same data, made the real problem quickly visible. There was no shared understanding of what the right solution looks like — and deep uncertainty around legislation, how to interpret lifecycle assessments, and the absence of shared definitions and assessment frameworks.
“Better alternatives already exist. Scaling them is a decision-making problem, not a materials problem.”
Verive: Why use a design thinking approach?
Loes van Os: Because this is as much a systemic problem as it is a technical one. Technical limitations are real — food safety requirements, barrier properties, machine compatibility, shelf life, recycling infrastructure — but scaling is often blocked before those even become the issue. Design thinking forces you to slow down and understand the problem from multiple perspectives before jumping to solutions.
In packaging, every decision involves trade-offs between cost, circularity, food safety, and performance. What counts as the “right” choice depends entirely on how you weigh those. By working iteratively with both internal teams and external chain partners, we could see that the real issue wasn’t material performance alone. It was misalignment. Without that process, we would have solved the wrong problem.
Food packaging and sustainability: Where the friction lies
Verive: What were the biggest bottlenecks you identified?
Several things came up repeatedly. There’s no shared starting point: data exists, but stakeholders interpret it differently. One focuses on CO₂ reduction, another on recyclability, another on food safety. Everyone also sees different risks: retailers worry about price and consumer acceptance, producers about machine compatibility, recyclers about volumes. And there’s no clear ownership – not because people are unwilling, but because no single actor currently has a formal coordinating role in the chain. A key question the research kept returning to was: who is willing and able to step into that role?
Beyond those three, several other themes consistently arose:
- Stakeholders are often brought in too late, after key decisions are already fixed;
- Uncertainty around future legislation like the EU’s Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation (PPWR) creates hesitation; and
- Reliable, practically applicable data remains difficult to come by.
“The biggest bottleneck isn’t willingness, but the lack of shared ownership and aligned decision-making across the chain.”
Verive: Food packaging seems particularly complex. What makes it so difficult?
Loes van Os: You’re not just navigating circularity goals. You’re also dealing with strict product requirements. Packaging for acidic foods, high-temperature processes, or long shelf lives can only work with a limited range of materials. Add food safety regulations, evolving legislation like PPWR, stakeholders each focusing on a different piece of the puzzle, and you end up making decisions under conditions of real uncertainty. That’s what tends to push companies toward short-term, safe choices rather than decisions that hold up over time.
Read her article in Verpakkingsmanagement
From insights to action
Verive: What needs to happen for these insights to translate into real change?
Loes van Os: The research pointed to four concrete directions:
- Earlier chain collaboration — bringing stakeholders together before decisions are locked in, not after.
- Shared interpretation of the data and impact. Not just sharing lifecycle assessments, but discussing the assumptions behind them so everyone is working from the same understanding.
- Greater transparency and knowledge sharing across the chain.
- And giving retailers and producers a seat at the table earlier, before key decisions are already fixed.
In practice, that also means reframing blockers as questions.: Instead of “this won’t work in our machines,” ask what would need to change to make it work. That shift, from constraint to challenge, is where real momentum begins. These aren’t separate fixes. Together, they point toward a different way of working, one where progress is made collectively, before positions harden.
“Real progress will happen when a retailer, a supplier, and a recycler are all at the table, before any decisions are made.”
Verive’s role
Verive: As a Bunzl-owned brand, what role can Verive play specifically?
Verive can go one step further. Being closer to the product and the end customer gives it more direct influence over what actually reaches the market. But that also means more responsibility. Before introducing materials with a better environmental profile, Verive needs to verify that they actually work within existing systems – that a recycler can process them, that they meet product requirements. Once that groundwork is in place, Verive can be genuinely proactive: introducing materials with reduced environmental impact but also helping translate complex chain insights into practical decisions. That’s how an own brand can move the market – step by step, from the inside.
Though it’s worth being clear: no single actor can solve this alone. Collaboration across the chain remains essential.
This Verive Talk is part of an ongoing series spotlighting the conversations, research, and collaborations shaping the future of food packaging. Missed our previous Verive Talk? Read our conversation with a bioplastics expert. Questions about the project or about clarifying your role in the supply chain? Get in touch with us.
Nerea Tarrero
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