EPR compliance is a cost — there’s no ROI to the program on its own. But the packaging data companies are required to gather to comply with it? That’s where the opportunity begins.

In this episode, Jessie Schwartz, President of Strategic Packaging Partners, joins the conversation to unpack what’s actually happening with Extended Producer Responsibility right now: why so many companies still don’t know where their packaging data lives, why “sustainable” is one of the most poorly defined words in the industry, and why companies should think beyond simply submitting an EPR report.

After a career at General Mills, Jessie founded Strategic Packaging Partners, a packaging engineering and EPR reporting company that gives brands flexible access to experienced packaging engineers. Today, the company is focused on helping clients take the data being collected for EPR and turn it into an actionable packaging cost-savings pipeline.

Because once you know what packaging you have, how much of it you use, what it’s made from, and what it costs, that information can do much more than satisfy a reporting requirement. It can help identify material reductions, specification changes, design improvements, sourcing opportunities, and other packaging optimization projects that can deliver measurable savings.

Jessie also shares the thinking behind Pack-IQ, a platform designed to bring structure to fragmented packaging data and help companies move from compliance to analysis, optimization, and execution.

The bigger idea: EPR may force companies to finally organize their packaging data — but the winners will be the companies that actually do something with it.

In this episode:

• (0:29) Lavazza's zero-packaging coffee pod
• (2:53) California's SB54 EPR lawsuit and the Oregon precedent
• (5:24) Introducing Jessie Schwartz, President of Strategic Packaging Partners
• (6:03) From packaging engineer at General Mills to founder
• (7:19) The core EPR challenge: where does the data even live?
• (8:14) What does "sustainable" actually mean?
• (10:53) Why companies are still catching up on EPR basics
• (13:07) Turning compliance data into a cost-savings pipeline
• (14:24) The real adoption barrier: culture, not tech
• (17:00) Why no one has all the answers — and why that's okay
• (18:55) Off-the-Shelf: a 1987 expandable drink concentrate bottle
• (23:04) Closing thoughts

This episode originally aired on the Beyond Packaging podcast, hosted by Laura Foti and Matthew Wright.

If you love our content and want to learn more about the packaging industry, hit SUBSCRIBE!

Connect with us: www.StrategicPackagingPartners.com
Jessie Schwartz - jessie@stratpackpartners.com