The best EPR software for food and beverage brands in 2026

Two identical one litre plastic bottles can come off the same filling line and land in completely different systems. Fill one with a soft drink and it carries a deposit. Fill the other with milk and it does not.

That is the shape of producer responsibility in food and drink, and it is why choosing EPR software for food and beverage brands is a different job from choosing it for anything else. This page ranks six tools on how well they handle a container whose rules change with the product inside it.

What the drink inside decides about the bottle

Deposit systems are the part of packaging law that only beverage brands have to think about, and they are arriving on a fixed timetable.

Article 50 of the EU Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation gives Member States until 1 January 2029 to separately collect at least 90 % by weight of two formats each year.

The two formats are single-use plastic beverage bottles with a capacity of up to three litres, and single-use metal beverage containers with a capacity of up to three litres.

To reach 90 %, Article 50(2) tells Member States to set up a deposit and return system and to make sure a deposit is charged at the point of sale.

The product category settles it rather than the material

Article 50(4) lists the drinks that the deposit obligation does not reach. The bottle can be the same PET or the same aluminium as the one next to it on the shelf, and it still falls outside the system if what is inside it appears on this list.

1. Wine and aromatised wine. The listed grapevine product categories in Regulation (EU) 1308/2013 and aromatised wine products under Regulation (EU) 251/2014.
2. Wine-like drinks from other fruit. Products similar to wine and aromatised wine made from fruit other than grapes or from vegetables, and other fermented beverages under CN code 2206 00.
3. Spirits. Alcohol-based spirituous beverages under CN heading 2208.
4. Milk and milk products. The dairy products listed in Part XVI of Annex I to Regulation (EU) 1308/2013.

There is a size carve-out as well. Member States may leave bottles and cans under 0,1 litres out of the deposit system where taking part is not technically feasible.

Serving on the premises is treated differently again

If you run or supply a hospitality business, Article 50(3) lets a Member State excuse you from charging the deposit at all, but only when three things are true together.

The packaging has to be opened on the premises, the product has to be consumed on the premises, and the empty packaging has to be returned on the premises.

That is a narrow gate. A cup filled and drunk at a café table can sit outside the deposit system while the identical cup handed over the counter to somebody walking away does not.

Outside the EU the same job runs to different dates

Two nearby deposit systems matter to most European drinks brands and neither of them runs on the EU timetable. Ecosurety, one of the tools below, publishes the working detail on both.

By their account the Republic of Ireland scheme is already operating and covers PET plastic bottles and aluminium or steel cans between 150 ml and 3 l.

The UK scheme begins in 2027 for PET bottles and aluminium cans in England, Scotland and Northern Ireland, and the Welsh scheme also begins in October 2027 with glass bottles included. The deposit management organisation for England, Scotland and Northern Ireland is Exchange for Change.

They are candid that many UK details are still to be confirmed. Our UK deposit return scheme explainer covers the same ground.

Food contact changes your recycled content number

Recycled content is the one packaging rule where food and drink brands get an easier number than everybody else, and most producers do not realise it applies to them.

The reason is a definition. Article 3(49) calls packaging contact-sensitive when it is intended for products covered by a list of regulations, and that list includes Regulation (EC) 1935/2004, the food contact materials framework.

So an ordinary yoghurt pot, a juice bottle and a crisp packet are all contact-sensitive packaging, which puts them in different buckets from the shrink film around the outer case.

The four buckets and what each one owes

Article 7 sets a minimum percentage of post-consumer recycled content for every plastic part of a pack, measured as an average per manufacturing plant and per year.

The first deadline is 1 January 2030 or three years after the relevant implementing act enters into force, whichever is later, so treat 2030 as the earliest date rather than a fixed one.

The gap in the middle row is the one worth reading twice. A non-PET food pack owes 10 % where the outer film around it owes 35 %, and by 2040 that gap is 25 % against 65 %. Our contact-sensitive PET target explainer goes into the PET side in more detail.

Three exemptions written for food safety

Article 7 then removes some packs from the targets completely. Two of the three are about food specifically, which is unusual in a regulation that mostly treats all packaging the same.

1. Food for infants and young children. Contact-sensitive plastic packaging for food intended only for infants and young children, food for special medical purposes, and drinks and food typically used for young children under Regulation (EU) 609/2013.
2. Where recycled material would make the pack unsafe. Plastic intended to come into contact with food is out of scope where the quantity of recycled content poses a threat to human health and would put the packed product outside Regulation (EC) 1935/2004. This is the clause that protects you when no food-grade recyclate is available for that application.
3. Very small parts. Any plastic part representing less than 5 % of the total weight of the whole packaging unit.

That third one is quietly the most useful in a drinks portfolio. A tamper band, a small spout fitting or a thin liner can drop out of the calculation entirely, and you can only claim that if you hold the weight of each part rather than the weight of the pack.

The proof lives in your technical documentation

Article 7(6) says compliance is demonstrated by the manufacturer or importer in the technical information described in Annex VII.

In other words, the recycled content number is not something you report once a year to a scheme, it is something you evidence in the file that sits behind your EU declaration of conformity.

There is money attached too. Article 7(7) allows EPR contributions to be modulated on the percentage of recycled content in the pack, so the same figure that proves compliance can also move your fee.

Four of the six restricted formats are food and drink formats

From 1 January 2030, Article 25 stops economic operators placing certain packaging formats on the EU market at all. Six formats are restricted and four of them are formats a food or drink business uses every day, which makes this the single biggest packaging-design deadline in the sector.

Here is what each of the four covers, with the wording that decides whether your pack is caught.

1. Single-use plastic grouped packaging. Collation film and shrink wrap used at the point of sale to group goods sold in bottles, cans, tins, pots, tubs and packets as convenience packaging that encourages buying more than one. Grouped packaging genuinely needed to handle the goods is excluded.
2. Single-use plastic for fresh produce under 1,5 kg. Nets, bags, trays and containers for pre-packed unprocessed fresh fruit and vegetables. Member States may allow exemptions for water loss, turgidity loss, microbiological hazards, physical shocks, oxidation, or where organic and non-organic produce cannot otherwise be kept apart.
3. Single-use plastic for food and drink consumed on the premises. Trays, disposable plates, cups, bags and boxes used in hospitality, covering every eating area inside and outside the business. Venues without access to drinking water are exempted.
4. Single-use plastic single portions in hospitality. Sachets, tubs, trays and boxes holding individual servings of condiments, preserves, sauces, coffee creamer, sugar and seasoning. Two exceptions survive, packaging supplied with take-away ready-prepared food for immediate consumption, and packaging needed for safety and hygiene where care is individualised, such as hospitals, clinics and nursing homes.

Two dates sit alongside the ban. Member States may let micro-enterprises keep using the dine-in formats in point 3 where it is shown not to be technically feasible to avoid them or to reach the infrastructure a reuse system needs.

And by 12 February 2027 the Commission has to publish guidelines explaining the annex, including a list of the fruits and vegetables that are excluded from point 2.

How far each tool follows a drinks container

The six tools below all handle packaging data, and they stop at very different places. The bars show how far past your own records each one reaches, from building the pack data to working inside the deposit system itself.

Read a short bar as work that stays with you, not work left undone. Repax and Recyda build the numbers and the documents and you file them. ecosistant and Lorax EPI will do the filing for you.

Only two tools reach the deposit side. Ecosurety gets there by preparing your container data and forecasting the deposit cost, and Valpak by designing and operating the schemes themselves.

Our own short bar is a deliberate trade rather than a gap. You keep the data and the workflow, and nobody bills you for work you could do in an afternoon.

It is still a trade though. If the deposit systems are the part keeping you awake, the two tools with the longest bars genuinely go further than we do.

What we looked for in EPR software for food and drink

A list like this is only worth reading if you know what got a tool onto it, so here is the standard we applied. We only ranked tools whose own websites describe the work a food or drink portfolio actually generates.

1. Pack structure below SKU level. A drinks pack is a bottle, a closure, a label, a sleeve, a tray and a film, each with its own material and weight, so the tool has to record parts rather than one line per product.
2. A stated position on deposits. Either the tool works on deposit systems and says so, or it does not and we say so.
3. Recycled content evidence, not just a percentage box. Article 7(6) puts the proof in the technical file, so the tool has to hold the evidence behind the number.
4. Enough markets to match a drinks range. A brand selling into six countries is dealing with six registers and six fee tables.
5. A published position on price. Publishing a price is not a requirement to be on the list, but where a vendor keeps it behind a sales call we say so.
6. Nothing claimed that is not on the vendor's own site. Every strength and every limitation below comes from what each company publishes, checked in August 2026.

The best EPR software for food and beverage brands ranked

The order is overall fit for a food or drink portfolio, weighing what each tool does with the pack itself against how much of the deposit and reporting work it takes on. It is not the same order as the bars above. Read the watch-out on each one, because in this sector that is where the real differences live.

1. Repax

Repax Core is built around the thing a food or drink pack actually is, a stack of parts. Products break into assemblies, components and materials, each layer reusable across every product, so a 500 ml bottle and a 1,5 l bottle can share a closure and a label without you describing either twice.

That structure is what makes the Article 7 exemptions usable, because you cannot argue that a plastic part is under 5 % of pack weight unless you hold the weight of the part.

The other half is Declare, which produces the signed EU declaration of conformity and the Annex VII technical file that holds your recycled content evidence.

Its guided attestation covers Articles 5 to 12, including recycled content, recyclability, minimisation, reusability and labelling, and each claim links to a supporting document in an evidence vault.

Declarations get a unique number and a packaging ID with a QR code, a named signer with a timestamp, and frozen PDFs kept for the five to ten year retention periods.

• Best for food and drink producers who want to own their packaging data and file their own reports, across several markets.
• Strengths assemblies, components and materials as separate reusable layers, specs frozen at the moment of sale so a prior year stays reproducible, and a declaration tool that keeps the evidence attached to the claim.
• What it does for a food or drink portfolio turns one pack specification into the report each register wants, and carries the part-level weights the recycled content buckets and exemptions depend on.
• Deposit systems not covered. Repax records the container specification, and the deposit itself is handled by the scheme.
• Pricing public and self-serve. Core and Declare each run a free tier at €0 a month, Growth at €29, Pro at €59 and Enterprise for high volume, ex VAT as of August 2026. Core pricing lists the limits per tier.
• Watch-out the published product limits are 250 on free, 1.500 on Growth and 3.000 on Pro, so a wide grocery or drinks range means Pro with add-ons or Enterprise. Comply, which will handle scheme registration and submission, is not released yet and has a waitlist.

Repax is our own product, so it leads this list, and we have tried to be straight about where each of the others is stronger. On this page the honest version is that we go deepest into the pack and stop at the point where somebody else takes the job over.

2. Ecosurety

Ecosurety is the one vendor on this list selling a producer-side deposit service today rather than describing one. Their deposit page offers support for the live Republic of Ireland scheme and preparation for the UK scheme in 2027, and the deliverable is data rather than advice.

They prepare your drink container data for the Irish system, model your future deposit costs for both schemes, and show how a change to an in-scope pack moves your other obligations under packaging EPR and the UK Plastic Packaging Tax.

The data engine underneath is the strongest part of the offer. They describe over 220 validation checks from ingestion to calculation, 5,5 million rows processed per submission, ISO 27001 with full audit logs, and ingestion by raw file, by their own collection tool or by direct cloud-to-cloud sync.

They submit to the authorities themselves rather than handing you a file.

• Best for UK and Irish drinks brands for whom the deposit systems are the biggest unknown.
• Strengths a named deposit service for a live scheme, deep validation before anything is submitted, and scenario modelling across EPR, recycling evidence, the plastic tax and deposits in one place.
• What it does for a food or drink portfolio turns container-level data into a submitted UK return and a deposit cost forecast, and flags where a pack change trades one bill for another.
• Deposit systems covered as data and cost modelling for the Irish and UK schemes. They do not run the deposit system itself.
• Pricing no public price for the UK services. International compliance is published as a flat charge per country per year, with no figure attached.
• Watch-out the centre of gravity is the UK and Ireland. If most of your volume is continental, the EU deposit picture under Article 50 is not what this service was built around. Our Ecosurety alternatives page covers the other side of that.

3. Valpak

Valpak reaches further into the deposit world than anyone else here, and from an unusual direction.

Their deposit page sells scheme-side work, consulting and system design, IT infrastructure, collection and logistics including reverse vending machines, operation, financial clearing with fraud protection, and reporting.

They describe the obligated party as the manufacturer of in-scope drinks, typically the brand owner, and the scope as an aluminium, PET or steel container between 150 ml and 3 l, rolling out in October 2027.

For the producer side they act as a compliance scheme. That means registration with the environment agency, their own data submission system, compliance reviews and training, and recycling evidence bought on your behalf.

They also run a Plastic Packaging Tax service that gathers recycled content data, collects the evidence behind it and prepares and submits the quarterly returns, and their packaging compliance case studies name Coca Cola European Partners and Nestlé UK.

• Best for UK food and drink producers who want the whole obligation handled rather than a tool to run.
• Strengths the widest reach across UK packaging duties, from registration and submission to recycling evidence, the plastic tax returns and deposit scheme infrastructure, with a very large reference dataset of packaging behind it.
• What it does for a food or drink portfolio takes the filing off your desk, and generates auditable declarations of conformity with unique IDs through their members' area.
• Deposit systems covered furthest, including designing and operating a scheme, not only reporting into one.
• Pricing nothing published anywhere. Every route is a consultation, and their free calculators ask for contact details before showing a result.
• Watch-out this is a done-for-you model, so the packaging data still leaves your hands and comes back as a submission. If you want to keep the workflow, see Repax against Valpak.

4. Lorax EPI

Lorax EPI is the pick when the same drink ships into a long list of countries. Their homepage claims over 200 schemes available, and their regulatory subscription is the only product on this list that tracks the deposit picture globally rather than in one market.

Its stated coverage includes enacted packaging laws with design, labelling and EPR requirements, single-use plastics restrictions, overviews of deposit return systems across global markets, environmental labelling developments, and material restrictions and bans.

The subscription is delivered as a searchable legislation hub updated monthly, with unlimited internal users on one annual licence, webinars every June and December with slides and recordings, and monthly emerging-trends summaries organised by region.

On the reporting side they sell two levels, a software-only service where you file, and an outsourced service where they submit reports directly into scheme portals.

• Best for food and drink brands selling into many markets who need to see deposit and labelling changes coming before they land.
• Strengths the widest scheme coverage here, genuine multi-stream reach across packaging, electronics, batteries and textiles, and a horizon-scanning product that names deposit systems explicitly.
• What it does for a food or drink portfolio screens your data against scheme categories, models fees, handles registrations, and keeps a running view of the rules that keep moving in this sector.
• Deposit systems covered as intelligence. You get overviews of the systems across markets, not a service that handles the deposit.
• Pricing sales-led with nothing published.
• Watch-out they state plainly that they cannot support plastics tax registrations because those sit under tax rather than EPR, so a UK drinks brand needs a second answer for that. Lorax EPI alternatives sets out who covers the gap.

5. Recyda

Recyda is the tool to reach for when the lever you are pulling is packaging design rather than reporting.

Their software combines EPR reporting, recyclability assessment and PPWR readiness, covering more than 20 countries for EPR and recyclability with Denmark, Finland and France named, and it scores packs against the recyclability rules a food or drink pack is actually judged by.

Their homepage names the ZSVR minimum standard and EN 18120, and their wider guideline set covers RecyClass, CEFLEX, KIDV, the APR Design Guide and COTREP, plus the UK recyclability assessment methodology.

On the declaration side they publish a full status flow from pending review through to a signed declaration, with bulk export of declarations and technical documentation and an audit log on every status change.

• Best for food and drink brands whose packaging is being redesigned, where the recyclability grade and the recycled content number are the decisions on the table.
• Strengths recyclability scoring against the guidelines that set European grades, automatic EPR cost calculation by country rule, and a declaration workflow with real status tracking.
• What it does for a food or drink portfolio tells you what a pack change does to both the recyclability grade and the fee before you commit to it, then produces the declaration.
• Deposit systems not covered, and not mentioned on their site.
• Pricing demo only, with nothing published.
• Watch-out packaging only, so a drinks brand with electricals or batteries in the range needs something else, and their EPR flow ends in an export rather than a submission. Repax against Recyda covers where the two overlap.

6. ecosistant

ecosistant is the most realistic starting point for a small food or drink producer selling across borders, because it comes in two shapes.

The premium service manages the whole operational EPR process for you in up to 30 European countries, and the self-service option is digital guidance for small and medium businesses that would rather do it themselves.

Their coverage is genuinely broad for the price point, spanning packaging, electronics, batteries, textiles and furniture, with single-use plastics available on the premium service, across the EU plus Switzerland, Norway and the United Kingdom.

They have also added a declaration of conformity service in three tiers, a guided template pack, full preparation from your own tests and evidence, and an expert review of documents you already hold.

• Best for smaller food and drink producers who want European coverage without an enterprise contract.
• Strengths wide country coverage, real multi-stream reach, and a choice between running it yourself and handing it over without changing supplier.
• What it does for a food or drink portfolio registers and reports your quantities market by market, and now prepares the declaration as a separate service.
• Deposit systems not covered, and not mentioned on their site.
• Pricing mixed. Self-service plans are published on their site and the managed service is quoted on the number of countries, your volumes and the number of streams. Their own guidance puts external packaging scheme costs at roughly €50 to €150 per country per year as a minimum, on top of any service fee.
• Watch-out the deeper packaging work is a service rather than a product, so you are buying a process rather than a data model. See ecosistant alternatives for the closest comparisons.

Match a tool to what you put your product in

The container decides most of this, so start there rather than with your company size. Find the format that carries the biggest share of your volume.

1. Plastic bottles under three litres. Most EU markets will run a deposit system by 2029 and the UK from 2027, so pair a data tool with a deposit answer. Repax plus Ecosurety covers both halves. A Member State that already collected 80 % of the format in 2026 can ask to be excused, so check your own markets.
2. Aluminium and steel cans. Same deposit exposure as plastic bottles, and the same split. If you also sell into the UK, Valpak reaches the tax and the deposit scheme in one place.
3. Glass bottles. Not caught by the mandatory deposit under Article 50, although Member States are told to try, and Wales includes glass from October 2027. Watch it as a maybe rather than a certainty.
4. Beverage cartons. Multi-material, so the recyclability grade is the pressure point rather than the deposit. Recyda scores them against the European guideline set.
5. Pouches, films and flexible packs. These are where the contact-sensitive 10 % floor and the under 5 % part exemption pay off, and both need part-level weights. That is Repax territory.
6. Takeaway and dine-in formats. Four Annex V restrictions and a 2030 date, so the job is redesign with a paper trail. Recyda for the assessment, Valpak or Ecosurety if you would rather hand the reporting over.
7. Fresh produce trays and nets. Under 1,5 kg and single-use plastic means the format goes in 2030 unless an exemption applies, so track the Commission guidelines due by 12 February 2027.
8. Selling into many markets at once. More registers than formats is a different problem. Lorax EPI for the scheme breadth, ecosistant if the countries are European and the budget is smaller.

Every tool measured against a food and drink portfolio

The table below puts the six side by side on the things that separate them in this sector. Pricing is as published in August 2026.

If none of the six fits, the wider ranking of EPR software covers the market without the food and drink lens, and there are narrower lists for small businesses and for EU compliance.

Frequently asked questions about EPR software for food and beverage brands

A few things come up every time a food or drink brand starts shopping for a tool.

What is the best EPR software for food and beverage brands?

Repax, because a drinks pack is a stack of parts and Core records it that way, which is what the recycled content buckets and exemptions depend on. If deposit systems are your main worry, Ecosurety goes further on that specific job.

Does a deposit replace the EPR fee on a drinks container?

No. The deposit is a refundable charge collected at the point of sale under Article 50(2), and it sits alongside your ordinary packaging EPR contribution rather than replacing it. Deposit packaging also has to carry a deposit label.

Which drinks are exempt from deposit systems?

Article 50(4) puts wine and aromatised wine, wine-like drinks from other fruit and vegetables, spirits under CN heading 2208, and milk and milk products outside the deposit obligation. Member States may also exempt containers under 0,1 litres.

Do food packs need less recycled content than other packs?

Usually yes. Contact-sensitive packaging that is not a single-use beverage bottle owes 30 % if it is mostly PET and only 10 % if it is another plastic, against 35 % for everything else, from 2030 at the earliest.

Is there free EPR software for a small food or drink producer?

Yes. Repax Core and Repax Declare each have a free tier at €0 a month, with 50 orders a year and 250 products on Core and one declaration on Declare. ecosistant publishes self-service plans for small sellers too.

What happens to takeaway packaging in 2030?

Single-use plastic trays, plates, cups, bags and boxes for food and drink consumed on the premises cannot be placed on the market from 1 January 2030, and nor can single-portion condiment sachets in hospitality. A few narrow exceptions survive.

Who handles the German single-use plastics fund for takeaway packaging?

Deutsche Recycling is the clearest answer we have found, because they sell authorised representation under the German single-use plastics fund law as a named service. That levy sits next to packaging EPR rather than inside it, so it is a separate purchase.

Do beverage brands have a reuse target as well?

From 1 January 2030, Article 29(6) requires final distributors to make at least 10 % of the alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks they sell available in reusable packaging, rising towards 40 % by 2040. Own-brand products have to contribute fairly.