Deliverable 5.2 provides a consolidated comparative assessment of the demonstration activities carried out in WP5 of the R3PACK project, covering both the Reuse and Substitution pillars from preparation to scale-up phases. It analyses how the initial demonstration framework (defined in D5.1) evolved in response to technical maturity, operational constraints, economic feasibility and regulatory context. For the Reuse pillar, the deliverable demonstrates that reusable packaging systems are technically and operationally feasible across multiple food categories, with successful deployment in 20 stores and around 30 SKUs. Key learnings highlight the importance of packaging robustness, washing performance, allergen management, logistics coordination, in-store visibility and consumer education. While consumer engagement and return rates are encouraging, economic competitiveness with single-use plastics remains dependent on scale, standardisation and optimisation of washing and logistics loops. For the Substitution pillar, the analysis shows significant technical progress in machinability and shelf-life validation for selected dry and medium-barrier products using fibre-based packaging. However, high material costs, reduced line speeds, regulatory uncertainty under the PPWR and category-specific performance limits prevented progression to in-store demonstrations. Overall, D5.2 concludes that reuse and substitution are complementary strategies: reuse is closer to operational deployment but requires massification to become cost-competitive, while fibre-based substitution shows clear potential for specific categories but needs further R&D, cost reduction and regulatory clarity before large-scale adoption.
Bessone et al. (Mon,) studied this question.