D3.3: Adaptation of alternative food packaging solutions

This report has two parts. The first analyses how stakeholders across the plastic food packaging value chain perceive the transition to a circular economy, drawing on interviews with 40 stakeholders. These cover material production, product and brand ownership, distribution and use, reuse, and recycling, complemented by the views of market shapers such as policymakers, NGOs and innovation ecosystems. Across the value chain, the main drivers are societal pressure, regulation, growing customer demand for sustainable packaging, company sustainability commitments and, for some actors, cost reduction and new market opportunities. Barriers fall into four groups: technical (recyclate quality and purity, food-grade requirements, sorting efficiency, reuse logistics), economic (competition from virgin materials and linear systems, price volatility, high investment and scaling costs), regulatory (ambiguity and lack of long-term clarity) and socio-cultural (conservative mindsets, consumer misconceptions and reluctance to pay more). Stakeholders expect a future built on complementary solutions: mechanical and chemical recycling, bio-based content, design for recycling, better sorting and collection, and standardised, digitally enabled reuse systems. To accelerate the shift, the report identifies a set of system change levers: process and business model innovation, data and traceability systems, harmonised regulation, fiscal incentives, funding and research, cross-value-chain partnerships, awareness raising, and transparent environmental assessment. The second part introduces the STOPP Quality Quantity Match Model (QQMM), a framework designed to facilitate market access for alternative packaging materials, particularly recyclates. Uptake of recycled content is set to become a requirement for packaging manufacturers under the upcoming Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation. The QQMM builds on previous projects, earlier STOPP deliverables and a proposed standard for plastic waste classification, and it was refined through the value chain interviews and a stakeholder validation workshop. It assesses material and value chain factors across three dimensions: feasibility, desirability and viability. This first version is an initial attempt to match stakeholders supplying recyclates with those that need them. It now needs testing in practice, further validation of its factors and a sensitivity analysis, and it lays the groundwork for a future fuzzy-logic matchmaking model and a basis for plastic waste classification.