Packaging Industry: “Regulation Slows Us Down and Drives Innovation at the Same Time”

How has the regulatory burden on your member companies developed?
Unfortunately, it has grown over the past ten years. More than 20 regulations now apply to mechanical engineering. Each one makes sense, but it is the sheer volume that takes a toll: the many declarations that small and midsize companies in particular have to submit, the audits, the written documentation. According to a recent association study, these can amount to as high as three percent of revenue – money that is then unavailable for value creation and innovation.

What is the mood in the companies right now?
To be honest, it’s rather subdued. That has mainly to do with the global economy: the uncertainty created by an erratic U.S. tariff policy, the situation in the Middle East, the loss of markets such as Russia, and sharply rising competition from China. Incoming orders have given us little cause for cheer over the past year and a half. But regulation, too, is weighing on the mood.

But does regulation only hold innovation back or does it also force it?
Both. It depends very much on the technology involved. In environmental technology, for example, regulation is a clear driver of innovation in many areas and helps German industry sell its modern technology. But if I spend most of my time producing declarations of conformity and documentation instead of focusing on development and sales, the result is an unbearable load of bureaucracy and costs. On top of that, many regulations leave room for interpretation and are implemented differently across EU member states.

That brings us to the new EU packaging regulation –  the Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation, or PPWR for short – which becomes applicable in August. What does it require and whom does it affect?
Its goal is clear and worthwhile: to minimize the negative environmental impact of packaging across the EU through reuse and recycling. We all want that. The PPWR affects every economic operator that manufactures, places on the market, purchases, or reuses packaging. That includes the machine builder shipping a seal, a motor, or a pump – whether in a film-lined wooden crate, in foam packaging, or in a small pouch. It covers packaging made of plastic, paper, wood, glass, and metal.

Where does the bureaucratic burden come from?
Companies need certificates and declarations of conformity from suppliers throughout the entire supply chain. They must register every single piece of packaging and then check and document it against specific criteria: the spare part in a small box is one piece of packaging, the bag with a few seals is the second, the wooden crate for a machine component is the third. Not surprisingly, there is a great deal of last-minute activity and uncertainty in companies.

Can this pressure also spark innovation?
Absolutely. Driven by sustainability and cost-effectiveness, this development is already underway. Mono-material films are a good example: They consist of a single material and can therefore be recycled well. Conventional packaging, by contrast, is often made up of several tightly bonded layers, which makes it hard to recycle. Fiber-based packaging materials are also becoming increasingly important. Today, they can be thermoformed and coated, making them suitable even for liquid products.

You attended interpack 2026 in early May. What did you take away about the role such leading trade fairs play for regulation and innovation?
Many machine builders now advise their customers holistically – including on regulatory compliance – and not just large food manufacturers, but smaller companies as well. This represents a major opportunity for small and midsize companies. The technology is also advancing rapidly: Digitalization is now standard. The next step is artificial intelligence: machines that optimize themselves, communicate across the entire value chain, identify improvement opportunities autonomously and enable predictive maintenance based on sensor data.

The trade fair itself is the industry’s meeting place – almost like a global marketplace. Across the sold-out exhibition halls, I see machines from Hungary, Chile, India and the United States alongside the latest innovations from Italy and Germany. That allows visitors to compare technologies directly. What’s more, three-quarters of all visitors come from outside Germany, making it easier to look beyond the German perspective – including when it comes to regulation. In 2028, drupa and K will offer a similarly international picture, and by then the industry will undoubtedly have moved forward once again.

Ten years from now, how would you recognize that the PPWR was a good thing?
If we have a functioning market for recyclates – that is, secondary raw materials recovered through recycling and used to manufacture new products. Then Design for Recycling will be embedded from the very beginning, as it already is in some applications today. Artificial intelligence will help us identify materials more accurately, sort packaging faster and use recycled materials far more efficiently. I expect today’s recycling technologies will be almost unrecognizable in ten years’ time. That is when we will truly have a circular economy – and when we will start talking about valuable raw materials rather than waste.