Sector · Food packaging distributors

Pass EPR and PPT through. Cleanly.

You place the packaging, so you carry the obligation - and usually the importer one too. Packlah calculates your EPR and PPT across every SKU, then gives you a per-customer rate sheet you can hand straight to each account. Built by people from packaging distribution. We know what a clumsy uplift costs you.

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Per-customer rate sheets

Importer obligations

EPR + PPT in one view

app.packlah.io / rate-sheets / acme-cafe-group

Rate sheet - ACME Cafe Group

EPR + PPT uplift · 42 SKUs on this account

Ready to send

SKU	Current	EPR	PPT	New
EL-1247	£0.420	+£0.008	+£0.003	£0.431
EL-2103	£0.310	+£0.013	£0	£0.323
EL-2204	£0.180	+£0.004	+£0.002	£0.186
EL-3110	£0.580	+£0.008	+£0.006	£0.594
Avg uplift on this account				+2.6%

EL-2103 shows £0 PPT- it's above 30% recycled, so it's exempt. Worth flagging to the customer.

The distributor's problem

Big volumes, hidden import exposure, a pricing dilemma.

Volume makes you exposed.

Packaging is your product, so you place it on the market at scale. Above 50 tonnes you're a large producer and the full EPR liability applies - across plastic film, board, FBC containers and foil trays, that reaches five figures before you've touched PPT.

You're probably an importer too.

Buying from overseas manufacturers makes you the importer of record. Under EPR the importer is the obligated producer. Under PPT you owe the tax on every plastic component below 30% recycled. Most distributors carry this without realising it sits with them, not the supplier.

The pass-through dilemma.

Absorb EPR and PPT and you erode margin permanently. Pass it through clumsily - a blanket 4%, or a vague “compliance surcharge” - and the customer shops around. The clean answer is a per-SKU uplift, specific to each account. That's the conversation you want.

How Packlah works for distributors

Rate sheets first. Then everything behind them.

Customer rate sheets

Per-SKU uplifts, by account.

The lead feature for distributors. Once your catalogue is calculated, generate a branded rate sheet per customer account - showing the EPR and PPT uplift on each product they buy from you, as pence-per-unit or a percentage. No blanket surcharges. No “trust me” conversations. Your customer sees exactly what's changing and why.

Per-account output reflecting that customer's actual SKU mix
Exportable to send alongside your next price review
EPR disposal fee and PPT in one line per SKU

Rate sheets by account

12 accounts

Customer	SKUs	Avg uplift
ACME Cafe Group	42	+2.6%
Northbridge Catering	118	+3.4%
Riverside Takeaways	27	+4.1%
The Daily Roast	15	+1.9%

Catalogue management

Your whole range, not just the obvious lines.

Distributors don't have three SKUs. You have hundreds, often thousands, spanning materials that each carry different EPR rates - plastic, fibre composite, paper and board, aluminium. Packlah calculates each line on its own material basis. Packaging you use in your own warehouse is flagged separately from your saleable range, so your uplift figures stay clean.

Per-material EPR across all eight DEFRA categories
PPT calculated per plastic component against the 30% threshold
Consumables and saleable items handled separately

Catalogue · 380 SKUs

Calculated

Material	Tonnes	£/t	EPR
Plastic	88	£485	£42,680
Paper / board	77	£215	£16,555
Fibre composite	33	£455	£15,015
Aluminium	22	£395	£8,690
Annual EPR			£82,940

Importer obligations

Import exposure surfaced, not buried.

If you import packaging from outside the UK, you're the producer for EPR and the liable party for PPT on sub-30% recycled plastic. Packlah flags your imported lines and separates the obligation so you can see exactly where your import exposure sits - by SKU, by material, by volume. The lines most distributors miss are often the highest-fee ones.

Country of origin captured per SKU
Import obligation identified and separated in output
PPT liability flagged on relevant imported lines

Imported lines

94 SKUs flagged

SKU	Origin	Material	Liable
EL-2103	Spain	FBC	You
EL-4011	China	Plastic	You
EL-1247	UK	Paper	Mfr
EL-5520	Turkey	Plastic	You

Integrations

Syncs from your ERP or wholesale system.

You shouldn't be re-keying your catalogue. Packlah accepts a CSV export from your ERP, accounting system, or wholesale platform, with automatic column mapping for the header names different systems use. Multi-material SKUs - a container with a lid, a liner, and a bag - roll up cleanly into one line.

CSV import with auto column mapping
Material aliases handle how your system names things
Duplicate SKUs skipped on re-import

See supported integrations

Import from CSV

380 rows mapped

Your column	Mapped to
item_code	SKU
composition	Material
unit_weight_g	Weight (g)
recycled_pct	Recycled content
origin	Country of origin

A worked example

What this looks like for a mid-size book.

Distributor · 220 tonnes · 380 SKUs

A food packaging distributor places 220 tonnes across 380 SKUs in a year - a fairly typical mid-size book. The mix is 88 tonnes of plastic (film, lids, clamshells), 77 tonnes of paper and board (bags, wraps, pizza boxes), 33 tonnes of fibre-based composite (bagasse takeaway containers), and 22 tonnes of aluminium foil trays. At current published EPR rates that works out to roughly £83,000 in disposal fees. On top of that, 70 tonnes of the plastic range sits below the 30% recycled threshold, adding around £15,600 in PPT at £223 per tonne - a combined compliance cost of about £98,500 for the year. Packlah then breaks that back to a per-unit uplift for each SKU, ready to drop into a rate sheet for each customer. The conversation about the 2.3p increase on a clamshell tray is a lot easier when you can show the working.

All figures use current published placeholder rates. Packlah flags these clearly and updates them the moment DEFRA and HMRC confirm final numbers.

Distributor FAQ

The questions distributors ask.

Yes - that's the core reason distributors use Packlah. Once your catalogue is calculated, you can generate a separate rate sheet for each customer account showing the EPR and PPT uplift on the specific SKUs they buy from you. Two customers buying different lines see different figures, because their exposure is different. Packlah calculates each account's uplift from the same underlying catalogue, so everything stays consistent even as rates change.

It does, and it matters. Under UK EPR, the importer of packaging is the obligated producer for those lines. Under PPT, the importer is liable for the tax on any plastic component below 30% recycled content. Packlah captures country of origin per SKU and flags your imported lines in the calculation output so you can see your import obligation clearly. Lines supplied by UK manufacturers who carry their own EPR obligation are handled separately.

The calculator covers all eight DEFRA material categories: plastic, paper and board, fibre-based composite, aluminium, steel, glass, wood, and other. Each SKU can carry multiple material lines - so a bagasse container with a PLA lid and a paper sleeve is one SKU with three material rows. Each line is rated independently against the correct EPR fee and, where plastic, against the PPT 30% threshold. Your total is the sum across all lines, broken back per SKU.

Packlah accepts a CSV export from your ERP, accounting system, or wholesale platform, and the import flow auto-detects common column headers (SKU code, item code, material type, composition, weight). SKUs already in your catalogue are skipped on re-import so you don't get duplicates. Direct integrations with the major accounting, ERP and wholesale systems are on the way - see the integrations page.