PPWR – the EU’s packaging rules have changed and here’s what it means for supplement packaging 

As of 12 August 2026, the way products are packaged in Europe officially changed. The Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation (PPWR) — Regulation (EU) 2025/40 — has begun to apply, replacing the old Packaging and Packaging Waste Directive with a single, harmonised rulebook across all 27 member states. 

For a lot of industries this has been a slow-moving headline. For nutraceuticals it’s more immediate than most people realise — supplements sit squarely inside the scope of these rules, which puts the whole supply chain, from brand to manufacturer, directly in the frame. 

What the PPWR is actually trying to do 

At its core, the PPWR is built around a few clear aims: reduce the plastic content in packaging, increase the recyclability of packaging materials, and strip out unnecessary packaging altogether. Rather than landing all at once, it rolls out through a series of milestones that get progressively stricter over time — with the end goal being fully recyclable packaging solutions across the market.

On paper, it’s hard to argue with. The interesting part is what it takes to actually get there.

The challenge nobody sees from the outside 

Recyclable, reduced-material packaging sounds simple until you have to guarantee the product inside is just as protected as it was before.

That’s the real tension for manufacturers. The finished pack has to stay as stable and effective as it is with conventional blister structures. Use less material, or swap in recycled content, and you can start affecting the things that actually matter on a production line — the sealing behaviour and the mechanical strength of the pack. For supplements, where product stability and shelf life aren’t negotiable, that’s not a small detail.

Then there’s the equipment itself. Meeting the new standards isn’t just a matter of choosing greener materials — it means adjusting the machines so they’re capable of processing those new materials in the first place. New formats, new substrates, and the same non-negotiable requirement: a finished product that performs exactly as it did before, with less (or no) virgin plastic behind it.

In other words, the regulation sets the destination. Reengineering the packaging and the process to get there without compromising the product — that’s the actual work.

The milestones, in order

The dates are already set, which makes this easier to plan around than most regulation.

12 August 2026 Restrictions on substances in packaging, the general recyclability requirement, producer identification on the pack, and the paperwork that sits behind it — a conformity assessment, a technical file, and an EU Declaration of Conformity for each packaging type.

2028 Harmonised labelling arrives: a standardised EU sorting label, and QR codes on reusable formats.

2029 The step change. Recyclability gets graded, and packaging that falls below the threshold loses market access. Minimum recycled content becomes mandatory in plastic packaging. Empty space inside a pack gets capped.

2038 and 2040 The thresholds tighten again. Only the top recyclability grades stay on the market, and recycled content targets step up a second time.

Two of those matter most for supplements. 2030, because recycled content and recyclability grading both land there. And now — because the packaging designed this year is the packaging that has to clear 2030.

A fair amount of the fine detail still sits in delegated acts the Commission has not issued yet, so some criteria and dates could still shift. Which is its own argument for building packaging that can adapt, rather than optimising against rules that are not final.

Why this matters now 

Packaging is no longer a late-stage decision. It’s a formulation-era one. The brands that treat PPWR compliance as a design problem to solve early — rather than a box to tick before shipping — are the ones who’ll move through each milestone without scrambling. 

At SIRIO Europe, this is already the conversation we’re having with the brands we work with: matching the right delivery format and packaging to a product that has to stand up to both the market and the regulation, without ever compromising stability. As the specialists, that’s the part we think about so our partners don’t have to. 

Curious about packaging possibilities? Request your packaging sample kit and discover ours now.

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Want to go deeper on packaging? Tune into our podcast, The Source, where Felix Mattern unpacks what the PPWR means for the supplement industry — from the milestones ahead to the real-world challenges of building compliant, recyclable packaging without compromising the product.