IN Brief:
- Reusable transport packaging was cheaper in four of five European fruit and vegetable supply chains modelled in the baseline scenario.
- Average savings across the five reusable cases were calculated at 11.6%.
- Packaging prices, transport distances, truck utilisation, and individual logistics processes were major determinants of the result.
Reusable transport crates were cheaper than single-use alternatives in four of five fruit and vegetable supply chains examined in a European total-cost study led by the Fraunhofer Institute for Material Flow and Logistics IML, although the results varied substantially between products and routes.
The analysis was commissioned by Stiftung Initiative Mehrweg and undertaken by Fraunhofer IML with LMS Logistik Management Service. It compared the total cost of ownership of reusable and single-use transport packaging rather than limiting the calculation to the purchase price of the crate or carton.
Five practical supply chains were modelled: apples from Germany, oranges from Spain, grapes from Italy, mushrooms from Poland, and tomatoes from the Netherlands. Costs were followed through packaging provision, packing, transport, central warehousing, retail-store processes, return logistics where applicable, and disposal or recycling.
Reusable systems were more economical in four of the five baseline scenarios. Across all five routes, the analysis calculated an average cost saving of 11.6% when reusable crates were used.
The largest differences were recorded for tomatoes from the Netherlands and apples from Germany. Total costs for the single-use tomato system were 27.8% above the reusable alternative, while the single-use apple system was 22.9% more expensive.
Mushrooms from Poland were the exception. In that baseline case, single-use crates produced a 0.4% cost advantage, leaving the two systems close enough to show why an average result cannot be applied automatically to every produce supply chain.
The study identifies packaging acquisition costs or usage fees as the largest cost component in almost all of the modelled routes, followed by transport between the packer and the central warehouse. Oranges from Spain differed because the longer distance made transport the dominant cost.
Those findings make logistics central to the economic case for reuse. A reusable crate spreads its initial cost across repeated cycles, but it also has to be recovered and returned in sufficient quantities for another use.
Container loss, inefficient returns, poor truck utilisation, excessive storage, or additional handling can erode the benefit generated by repeated use. A well-established pooling or recovery network can produce the opposite result by keeping assets circulating efficiently.
Single-use transport packaging avoids the need to return the same container to the packer, but requires new packaging for every cycle and creates a downstream disposal or recycling requirement. Its total cost is therefore also distributed across procurement, transport, labour, handling, and end-of-life processes.
Vehicle utilisation is particularly important because transport packaging occupies physical volume regardless of whether it contains produce. The way reusable equipment nests, stacks, or collapses for return journeys can affect how much transport capacity is consumed after delivery.
Distances between growers, packers, central warehouses, and stores further change that calculation. A short domestic route with predictable volumes and an established return system presents different economics from international produce moving over long distances through several stages of distribution.
The same applies inside packing facilities, warehouses, and stores. Labour associated with assembling, handling, sorting, cleaning, folding, storing, or preparing packaging for return can alter the total cost even when two competing containers have similar purchase prices.
The analysis therefore treats the crate as one component of a logistics system rather than an isolated packaging product. That is particularly relevant to fresh produce, where transport packaging passes through several organisations and handling stages before it can be returned, recycled, or discarded.
Scenario testing indicated that the overall results were largely robust when underlying parameters were changed, according to the study summary. That provides some support for the baseline findings but does not remove the substantial variation between the five individual routes.
The 11.6% average saving is consequently not a universal forecast. A producer switching packaging systems would need to reproduce the underlying conditions around crate cost, transport distance, utilisation, return rates, storage, handling, and cycle life before expecting a comparable result.
The work also concerns transport packaging rather than the consumer-facing pack in which produce is ultimately sold. The crates perform an industrial and logistics function through packing, distribution, warehouse handling, and retail replenishment, making their economics heavily dependent on repeated operational use.
Policy adds another reason for producers and distributors to understand those economics. European packaging rules are increasing attention on reuse and packaging reduction, but regulatory direction does not ensure that every reusable system will be cheaper under every logistics configuration.
The Polish mushroom case provides the clearest warning against treating reuse as an automatic cost winner. Even within one study using a consistent methodology, changing the product and route was sufficient to reverse the baseline economic result.
The four other routes nevertheless show that reuse can carry a meaningful cost advantage where the logistics system supports repeated circulation. Tomatoes and apples in particular produced differences large enough to make transport-packaging strategy a material operating-cost decision rather than a marginal purchasing choice.
The study’s practical conclusion rests in those route-level differences. Reusable crates performed better across most of the modelled supply chains, but the determining variables sit in the complete movement and handling system around the package, not in the label attached to the crate itself.
