Packaging materials and products

What public buyers purchase

Public bodies are not the largest packaging customers — most packaging is bought by manufacturers to pack their own goods — but they buy a steady stream of it. Hospitals, councils, schools and universities, prisons, the armed forces, archives and laboratories order cartons and boxes for storage and dispatch, refuse and waste sacks, food containers and disposable catering supplies for canteens, and specialist containers for samples and clinical waste.

In the CPV these purchases are spread across the vocabulary: 44617000 Boxes and 44617100 Cartons, 44618100 Light containers and 44619000 Other containers, 18937000 Goods-packing sacks, 19640000 Polythene waste and refuse sacks and bags, and 39222100 Disposable catering supplies. Contracts are usually multi-year frameworks divided into lots by product family, and they are sometimes tendered together with hygiene and cleaning consumables.

How distribution works

The companies that win these contracts are mostly packaging distributors and wholesalers of catering and hygiene disposables. They carry a broad catalogue from many manufacturers, deliver small mixed orders to hundreds of sites, and run the ordering portal the buyer's staff use. Manufacturers usually supply them by the pallet and sell direct only where a lot is large and specific enough to justify it.

For a manufacturer, public-sector award notices are a map of that wholesale layer. A distributor that keeps winning packaging or disposables lots for hospital groups or councils has the warehouses, delivery routes and customer base you would otherwise have to build. Award notices on TED name those winners and tag the category.

What distributors expect

The Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation (EU) 2025/40 has applied since 12 August 2026 and changes what a distributor will ask for:

• An EU declaration of conformity and the technical documentation for each packaging item, which the regulation requires the manufacturer to draw up before placing packaging on the market.
• For food-contact packaging, evidence on PFAS: since 12 August 2026 it may not be placed on the market with PFAS above the limits the regulation sets. Food-contact items also need to meet Regulation (EC) No 1935/2004 and, for plastics, come with the written declaration of compliance required by Regulation (EU) No 10/2011.
• A view of what comes next. Packaging must reach a recyclability grade, and plastic packaging a minimum share of recycled content, from 2030 at the earliest, at levels set per packaging type. A distributor signing a multi-year framework will ask how your range gets there.
• An answer on extended producer responsibility. The regulation requires producers to register in the national register of each Member State where they first make packaging available. For transport and service packaging, the producer is the company established in that Member State that first makes it available there, which is often the importing distributor, so expect the cost to come up in price talks.
• For paper and board sold as packaging in its own right, readiness for the EU Deforestation Regulation (EU) 2023/1115, which applies from 30 December 2026 for every operator, whatever its size: the deferral to 30 June 2027 for micro and small operators does not cover paper and board, which were already under the EU Timber Regulation (Article 38(3) as amended by Regulation (EU) 2025/2650). Products made entirely from recovered paper are excluded.
• Product data for every line — dimensions, material, weight, pallet pattern — and samples the distributor can put in front of a buyer for trial.

Markets to start with

France. Large hospital and municipal buyers and an established network of packaging and disposables wholesalers. B2B e-mail to a company's generic address (info@, contact@) needs no consent under CNIL guidance, so a first approach by e-mail is workable; a named professional address needs more (see France).

Germany. A market bought regionally by federal, state and municipal bodies and served by strong specialist wholesalers. E-mail advertising without prior express consent is unlawful, so plan on letters, trade fairs and introductions.

UK and Ireland. The UK publishes above-threshold awards on Find a Tender rather than TED, and Great Britain sits outside the EU regulation. The UK has its own rules: Plastic Packaging Tax, in force since 1 April 2022, on plastic packaging components with less than 30% recycled plastic, and an extended producer responsibility scheme for UK-established organisations handling more than 25 tonnes of packaging a year with a turnover of £1 million or more. Unsolicited e-mail to companies is allowed if you identify yourself and give an opt-out. Ireland stays inside the EU regime, so its awards appear on TED.

Netherlands. A compact, well-organised wholesale channel and demanding sustainability specifications. Unsolicited commercial e-mail requires prior consent, including for businesses, unless the company has published an address specifically for receiving such offers, so the first contact is by post, at a fair or through an introduction.

Nordics. Sweden, Denmark and Finland publish on TED as EU members and Norway does so through the EEA, so the same evidence is available. Check each country's rules on commercial e-mail before writing.