MeWEco

Motivation

The use of reusable packaging in food retail offers considerable potential for reducing resource consumption, waste, and greenhouse gas emissions.

Despite political objectives and growing public awareness, reusable packaging has not yet been implemented on a broad scale. At present, overarching, government-defined, and standardized hygiene and quality standards are lacking, as is a deeper understanding of the parameters that can increase customer acceptance. The project aims to overcome these barriers using the example of fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG).

Objectives and Approach

The MeWEco research project aims to combine the perspectives of users and producers with technological developments and framework conditions in a systemic approach. This is intended to significantly increase the use of high-quality reusable packaging with strong user acceptance in retail.

First, practice-oriented quality and hygiene parameters for reusable packaging will be defined using FMCG products as an example, based on user studies and requirements from retail and industry. Building on this, technical solutions for sorting and cleaning reusable packaging will be developed and demonstrated. Key stakeholders along the value chain, including technology providers, producers, retailers, and consumers, will be involved in order to systematically validate and advance feasibility and acceptance.

Innovations and Perspectives

MeWEco is the first project to combine consumer impact, measurable quality criteria, and process technology for reusable packaging for FMCG products in retail, while taking into account a systemic network, the reusable packaging ecosystem.

In doing so, it creates competitive reusable packaging business models with higher efficiency and potential scalability. The solutions and approaches developed provide the basis for material savings, reduced emissions, and broader market penetration of reusable systems.