You’ve highlighted that many reusable packaging systems face rising operational costs. What do you see as the single biggest inefficiency currently holding these systems back from scaling effectively?
The biggest inefficiency is that most reuse systems are still operated as single companies with their own mechanics for container identification, return, and cleaning, when in reality they can only scale as part of an ecosystem. Operational costs only come down when you optimise across the whole value chain, not within one operator's island.
A simple example: a reusable cup that can only be returned at the cafe where it was bought will always be expensive to operate, because the return rate stays low and the logistics are dedicated. The same cup, if it is compatible with a return network shared by grocery stores, public reverse vending machines and other gastronomy, suddenly benefits from infrastructure that already exists for other deposit items. Cost per cycle drops, return rates go up, and the user does not have to think about it.
What holds systems back is not the cost of operations as such, but the assumption that each operator should build its own end-to-end solution. That logic produces redundant logistics, redundant cleaning streets and redundant return points. End customers experience a user experience that can't compete with single-use products; for them, reusable options must first and foremost be simple if they are to adopt them. Certain parts of the value chain – particularly the return infrastructure – must be organized on a pre-competitive basis. This is one of the key prerequisites for scaling up reusable systems.
Sykell’s Circular ERP pool management platform addresses challenges like return logistics and inventory management. What was the key insight that led to developing this solution?
In designing our reuse system EINFACH MEHRWEG, positioned to be a major contributor to Germany’s ecosystem for reusable plastic food packaging for takeaway and pre-packed foods, we quickly realised that a circular value chain requires an entirely different approach to manage it: Former waste no longer represents lost resources, but assets, which are of value and need to be managed. They circulate from reuse to collection and service, in the millions. Parties involved have no interest to manually administer the processes along the journey and at the same time don't know how to do it more efficiently.
We were and remain aware of the needs of the different stakeholders involved: Deposits should just transfer without having to count, inventory- and pool-size should be accessible in real-time, not by manually counting. We learned early that assets can be serialized with individual codes, that these can be captured at filling lines, at reverse vending machines and cleaning streets, and that by knowing the partners along the value chain and the IDs of the assets, it is possible to automate circular workflows to manage deposits, billing, pick-ups, inventory, pool-size, -rotation speed and -performance at partner- and even asset-level. With this understanding, we ventured on to build Circular ERP, the pool management platform that enables automated workflows for circular operations of any kind, really.
Reusable systems like Recup or Muuse are already well established. Where do you think they fall short operationally, and how does your platform complement or enhance their models?
Recup and Muuse embarked very early upon the reuse journey. Their motivations have been strong contributors to the vision the reuse movement keeps developing. We are not here to point out shortcomings of individual systems, but to enable reuse systems to scale. The shortcoming until now with all new reuse systems addressing end-users is that we do not, yet, achieve the level of simplicity that single-use offers, which is supported by an established infrastructure that is not designed for reusable containers - from waste collection paid for by municipalities and gigantic ovens that are paid to burn single-use packaging.
To make the return of packaging for takeaway food really easy (and, in the future, also for pre-packaged foods; see our product EINFACH MEHRWEG PREFILL), we need infrastructure such as reverse vending machines in grocery stores (see our partner REWE in Germany) and in public (see New Loop pilots in Copenhagen, Ringo in Tallinn and Tomra in Lisboa). Why can we return deposit beverage bottles when strolling through the city at a grocery store’s RVM but not the plastic salad bowl from lunch? Because we have collection infrastructure for reusable bottles in place, but only trash cans for the bowl.
This illustrates that reuse requires infrastructure just as much as single-use does, but to build it, we need compatibility or interoperability between return points and reusable packaging types –therefore, standardized coding solutions are generally required on the containers
Once that is defined, software comes into play for system operators to manage their pools and administrate the systems. Of course, everyone can program their own software. But wouldn't it be more efficient to use what has already been developed with the know-how of multiple systems such as New Loop, Reposit, EINFACH MEHRWEG and several other systems in adjacent spaces? That's why we build Circular ERP.
How does Circular ERP improve transparency across the lifecycle of reusable containers, particularly when multiple stakeholders are involved?
Reusable containers move through a lot of hands: the brand or retailer that fills them, the supermarket or shop that sells the product, the consumer who uses and returns them, the collection point, the logistics partner, the cleaning operator, and back into circulation. Each of those stakeholders has a different question. The retailer wants to know how the deposit is settled and how it manages returns and storage within the available space. The cleaner wants to know what is coming in next week. The brand wants to know whether the pool is actually delivering the environmental and financial benefits it was promised. The operator needs to see all of it.
Circular ERP gives each of them the answer from the same underlying data. Circular ERP captures serialised assets, maps the partner network, and captures scan events at the points where containers naturally pass through, filling, return, cleaning. From there the system reconstructs the lifecycle automatically and exposes it through workflows and reporting tailored to each role.
Our pool management platform also automatically administrates the workflows for invoicing, pick-ups, deposit management, inventory levels, pool size and system performance. Also the workflows for return rates, loss rates, and average travel times at system-, partner- and asset-level are optimized. Of course it also reports how the reusable packaging pool actually performs in comparison to defined single-use alternatives.
One of the biggest challenges in circular systems is ensuring high return rates. How does your technology incentivise or enable more efficient returns?
The technology we use and engage brings efficiency into the administration of these systems and addresses with it a major cost drivers: manual workflows. Transparency lets system operators and other stakeholders know where they stand, how exactly their return rates develop, but it does not eliminate the need for smart system design to increase simplicity in reuse and collection and service of assets. This is one of our key requirements for making reusable packaging scalable: We need a comprehensive network of return points for end consumers so that using reusable packaging is easy for them.
You’re already operating in Germany, Denmark, and the UK. Have you noticed differences in how reusable systems are adopted or managed across these markets?
We find that everywhere eventually the understanding mounts that simplicity for stakeholders can only be achieved by addressing their requirements, which usually means compatibility: Be compatible with existing processes at cash registers, be compatible with existing reverse vending machines, be compatible with existing cleaning streets, AND be compatible with adjacent systems or even competitors because only volume will make these systems viable, and only ease-to-reuse and ease-to-return will yield the volume. To return to the example of the end customer: As long as a reusable coffee cup operator asks its user to enter a cafe to return the cup at the counter as the only return option, it will not be compatible with most people’s daily returns, and not scale beyond miniscule market shares.
At the same time, we find that in some markets legislation is pushing forward without systems being ready to scale and in others systems keep pushing, without any legislative support. In Lisboa, single-use cups for night-life beverages had been forbidden for several years, but only now a workable system comes into place that makes it simple for users to return. In Germany, we see more and more municipalities introducing a packaging tax for take-away, but the compatible ecosystem design for easy returns is not fully in place, yet. System gastronomists like McDonalds and Burger King keep wondering how reuse can ever work, while solely offering their individual island solutions that can only be returned at their own outlets. Well, that’s obviously not how single-use works, so why would reuse?
At the same time, we see reuse systems pushing and delivering great results in Aarhus, Copenhagen or Berlin without any legislative support. Once both come together, and stakeholders understand that they need to define the infrastructure that makes reuse easy, that’s when we will see reuse scale across markets.
Scaling reusable packaging globally introduces complexity. What are the biggest barriers you anticipate ahead of your global launch in Q3 2026?
While ideally, we would have harmonized tax rules and compatibility for return across markets so that people can travel from Rotterdam to Brussels and easily return, we know that we are still growing towards getting all puzzle pieces right in each market. As such, we believe we will need to see systems develop in parallel at regional levels. Once the described code is cracked for true scale, we will come to the point of harmonizing systems across markets. And that’s ok. All cannot be done at once.
How does Sykell approach end-of-life management within reusable systems, and why is this often overlooked in current solutions?
The only single-use systems that actually deliver economically viable recyclates of food grade levels are the PET beverage bottle systems. They are characterized by close proximity on material, additives and color use AND enjoy massive pre-sorting by users, incentivized by deposits. This yields huge amounts of monomaterial fractions that can actually be recycled. The described criteria are inherent in every reuse system: Here, too, users are encouraged to return containers through a deposit system. Assets then return pre-sorted to cleaning streets. After several rounds of use, reuse containers come to an end-of-life. They are then sorted out and, in a scaled state, deliver the monomaterial fractions required to recycle economically feasible. As such, reuse is about reuse first, and high-quality recycling second, not either or.
Many industries will face recyclate gaps as a result of the PPWR’s recyclate quotas, especially in the food-contact sensitive spaces. No one foresees enough PP recyclates for food use to be available for years to come and prices will rise steeply. While manufacturers and distributors of single-use packaging are facing a recycling gap to which the industry has not yet found a credible solution, there is no recycling problem with reusable packaging.
From a business perspective, how do you convince operators to invest in digital infrastructure like Circular ERP to ultimately reduce costs rather than add to them?
Every reuse operator hits the same wall. The first few hundred thousand cycles are manageable on spreadsheets and good intentions. Somewhere on the way to the first million, the administrative load across partners, retailers, logistics providers, cleaning operators, starts to grow faster than revenue. Headcount goes up, errors go up, deposits get stuck, partners lose trust in the numbers. That is the moment most systems either stall or start losing money on every additional unit.
Circular ERP exists to remove that wall. By automating the workflows that span the supply chain, deposit clearing, invoicing, inventory, pickup planning, performance reporting, the platform decouples revenue growth from cost increase. Operators can manage ten times their volume without growing their team to administrate the system. That is what economies of scale actually look like in a circular system, and they are not achievable manually. So the conversation with operators is not really about software pricing. It is about whether they want to remain a pilot or become infrastructure. Circular ERP is what gets them across that threshold.
Looking ahead, what role do you see digital platforms like Circular ERP playing in shaping the future of circular economy systems in food retail and hospitality?
The future of circular systems in food retail and hospitality depends on a mindset shift the industry has not yet made: from companies optimising in isolation to networks operating in symbiosis across markets and use cases, optimising the system instead of the unit. Only then does reuse outperform single-use and become the standard.
Circular ERP is built for that world. It is the digital layer that connects independent operators into a working ecosystem, automating the workflows no single company can run alone.
Food brands, retail and hospitality are entering a period of real economic turbulence, recyclate gaps, regulatory cost, supply chain stress. Linear systems pass every shock to the consumer. Circular ecosystems absorb them, because the value stays in the network and the assets keep working. Reuse is not only the cleaner model. It is the more resilient one.