How to Collect Packaging Data from 100+ Suppliers Without Losing Your Mind

If you are responsible for packaging compliance at a UK business with a complex supply chain, you already know the problem. Under the reformed Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) scheme, obligated producers must report detailed data about every piece of packaging they place on the UK market. That data includes material type, weight, recyclability classification, packaging format, and whether it is household or non-household. And for most businesses, a significant proportion of that packaging originates not from your own operations, but from your suppliers.

When you handle ten suppliers, this is manageable. You send an email, attach a spreadsheet template, chase a few stragglers, and manually compile the results. But when you reach fifty, one hundred, or several hundred suppliers, the manual approach does not just become inconvenient. It becomes a genuine operational risk. Deadlines are missed. Data quality deteriorates. Compliance teams burn out. And the business faces regulatory exposure that could have been avoided.

This article explores why supplier data collection is the hardest part of EPR compliance for most businesses, evaluates the four most common approaches, and provides a practical step-by-step guide to building a process that actually scales.

Why Supplier Data Collection Is the Hardest Part of EPR

The reformed EPR scheme places reporting obligations on the brand owner or the business that places packaged goods on the UK market. In regulatory terms, you are the obligated producer. But in practical terms, you are dependent on information that lives inside other organisations. Your suppliers designed the packaging. They chose the materials. They know the specifications. You just receive the finished product on a pallet.

This creates a fundamental information asymmetry. The entity with the legal obligation (you) is not the entity with the data (your supplier). Bridging that gap is the core challenge, and it manifests in several ways:

• Supplier fatigue: Your suppliers receive data requests from every customer they serve, not just you. If ten of their clients each send a different spreadsheet template, the supplier's compliance team is overwhelmed before they even start.
• Data literacy gaps: Many suppliers, particularly smaller ones, do not have dedicated compliance or packaging teams. They may not understand what a RAM rating is, what "primary vs secondary vs tertiary packaging" means in DEFRA's classification, or how to weigh individual packaging components.
• Format inconsistency: Without a standardised collection mechanism, every supplier returns data in a different format. One sends weights in kilograms, another in grams. One lists materials as "plastic," another as "HDPE." One includes all components, another omits labels and closures.
• Timeline misalignment: Your reporting deadline is fixed by DEFRA. Your suppliers' priorities are not. Getting 150 suppliers to all respond within a three-week window requires sustained, structured effort.
• Audit trail concerns: If DEFRA or your scheme administrator queries a specific data point in your submission, you need to trace it back to the supplier who provided it. Without a structured system, that audit trail may not exist.

The Four Common Approaches (and Their Limitations)

Most businesses handling supplier data collection fall into one of four approaches. Each has trade-offs, and understanding where you currently sit helps identify the right path forward.

Approach 1: The Email Chase

This is the default starting point for most businesses. The compliance team drafts an email explaining what data is needed, attaches an Excel template, and sends it to every supplier. Then the chasing begins.

The email chase works when you have a small number of engaged suppliers. It falls apart at scale for predictable reasons. Emails get lost in inboxes. Suppliers reply with questions that require individual responses. The Excel file comes back with columns rearranged, data in the wrong fields, or entire sections left blank. You end up sending three or four follow-up emails per supplier, each one consuming time you do not have.

Typical response rate: 40-60% after first email. 70-80% after two rounds of chasing. 90%+ requires phone calls and escalation to commercial contacts.

Where it breaks: Beyond 30 suppliers, the time cost of individual chasing, data cleaning, and back-and-forth clarification becomes unsustainable. At 100+ suppliers, the compliance team is essentially doing nothing else for weeks.

Approach 2: Shared Spreadsheets

A step up from individual emails. The compliance team creates a shared Google Sheet or Excel Online workbook with a tab for each supplier, pre-populated with the product lines they supply. Suppliers are invited to fill in their rows.

This centralises the data into a single location, which is a genuine improvement. But it introduces new problems. Suppliers accidentally edit other suppliers' tabs. Formatting breaks when someone pastes data from another source. Version control becomes ambiguous. And you still have no built-in validation to catch errors at the point of entry.

Where it breaks: Beyond 50 suppliers. The shared workbook becomes unwieldy, slow to load, and prone to accidental corruption. Sensitive pricing or volume data from one supplier may become visible to another if permissions are not configured carefully.

Approach 3: Consultant-Managed Collection

Many businesses outsource the entire data collection process to a compliance consultant or Producer Responsibility Organisation (PRO). The consultant contacts your suppliers, collects the data on your behalf, cleans and validates it, and delivers a submission-ready dataset.

This works, and for businesses with the budget, it removes the day-to-day burden from internal teams. The limitation is cost and control. Consultant fees for supplier data management typically run into the tens of thousands of pounds per year for large portfolios. You are also dependent on the consultant's timeline, capacity, and methodology. If they have fifty clients all approaching the same DEFRA deadline, your project may not get priority.

Where it breaks: Budget constraints, or when you need real-time visibility into collection progress rather than waiting for a consultant's periodic update. You also lose direct institutional knowledge of your own supply chain data.

Approach 4: Self-Service Supplier Portals

The most scalable approach is a purpose-built digital portal where suppliers log in, see exactly what data is needed from them, enter it against their specific product lines, and submit it with built-in validation checks. The obligated producer gets a dashboard showing real-time progress, flagging suppliers who have not yet responded, and highlighting data quality issues automatically.

This is the direction the industry is moving. It solves the format inconsistency problem (suppliers enter data into structured fields, not free-form spreadsheets), the chasing problem (automated reminders replace manual follow-up), and the validation problem (rules catch errors at entry, not weeks later during compilation).

Where it breaks: Only if the portal is poorly designed, overly complex for suppliers, or lacks the right onboarding support. Supplier adoption depends on the tool being genuinely easy to use.

Step-by-Step: Building an Efficient Supplier Data Collection Process

Regardless of which tool or approach you use, the following framework will dramatically improve your supplier data collection outcomes. These steps are sequenced deliberately, and skipping early stages is the most common reason collection efforts stall.

Step 1: Map Your Supplier Universe

Before you send a single data request, you need a complete, accurate list of every supplier who provides packaging that you place on the UK market. This sounds obvious, but it is frequently incomplete. Common gaps include:

• Contract packers who supply finished products in their own packaging
• Private label manufacturers where packaging decisions sit with the manufacturer, not the retailer
• Transit packaging suppliers whose secondary and tertiary packaging (shrink wrap, pallet wrap, cardboard outers) is often overlooked
• Promotional or seasonal suppliers who may only supply for part of the year but still contribute obligated tonnage
• Overseas suppliers where packaging is applied before goods arrive in the UK

Cross-reference your procurement records, goods-received logs, and accounts payable data to build a comprehensive supplier list. Assign each supplier a priority tier based on their estimated packaging tonnage contribution. Your top 20 suppliers by volume likely account for 80% of your obligated tonnage.

Step 2: Standardise Your Data Request

Define exactly what data you need from each supplier, mapped directly to the DEFRA RPD submission format. The 15-column RPD specification requires specific fields, and your supplier data request should mirror these as closely as possible to minimise transformation work later.

At minimum, you need the following for every packaging component:

1. Product identifier (SKU, product name, or barcode)
2. Packaging component description (e.g., "primary bottle," "label," "closure," "outer case")
3. Material type (aligned to DEFRA's material categories: aluminium, glass, paper/card, plastic, steel, wood, fibre composite, other)
4. Material sub-type (e.g., PET, HDPE, PP for plastics)
5. Component weight (grams per unit)
6. Annual volume (units supplied to your business)
7. Packaging class (primary, secondary, shipment/tertiary)
8. Packaging type (household, non-household, or dual-use)

Provide clear definitions for each field. Do not assume suppliers know the difference between primary and secondary packaging in DEFRA's terminology. Include examples. A well-written one-page guidance document sent alongside your data request will reduce follow-up questions by 50% or more.

Step 3: Communicate Early and Through the Right Channels

Do not wait until four weeks before the reporting deadline to contact suppliers. Best practice is to notify your supply base at least eight to ten weeks before you need the data back. The initial communication should come from a commercial contact the supplier recognises, not from an unknown compliance email address. Suppliers prioritise requests from people they have a commercial relationship with.

Your initial outreach should include:

• A clear explanation of why you need this data (regulatory obligation, not optional)
• The specific deadline by which you need it returned
• The format you need it in (template, portal link, or both)
• A named contact person on your team for questions
• An indication of what happens if data is not provided (you may need to estimate, which creates risk for both parties)

Step 4: Implement a Structured Chase Cadence

Even with clear communication, not all suppliers will respond on time. Build a chase schedule before the first email goes out. A proven cadence looks like this:

The key insight is that escalation through commercial channels is more effective than repeated compliance emails. If a supplier's account manager tells them the data is needed, it gets prioritised. If an anonymous compliance email sends a fourth reminder, it gets ignored.

Step 5: Validate Data at the Point of Collection

Data validation is the step most businesses skip, and it is the step that causes the most pain later. Common data quality issues from supplier returns include:

• Implausible weights: A supplier reports a cardboard outer case weighing 3 grams (they meant 300 grams, or entered the weight in kilograms instead of grams)
• Missing components: The supplier lists the primary bottle but omits the label, closure, and secondary packaging
• Incorrect material classification: "Plastic" is not specific enough for RPD reporting; you need the polymer type
• Duplicate entries: The same product appears twice with different weights because the supplier updated packaging mid-year
• Unit vs. annual confusion: The supplier provides weight per unit when you asked for annual tonnage, or vice versa

Catching these issues during collection, rather than during compilation, saves enormous time. If you are using a portal-based approach, validation rules can flag these automatically. If you are using spreadsheets, assign a team member to review each submission within 48 hours and send clarification requests immediately.

Step 6: Handle Non-Responding Suppliers

Despite your best efforts, some suppliers will not respond. You need a documented policy for handling this. Most businesses adopt one of two strategies:

• Estimation based on prior-year data: If the supplier provided data last year and the product range has not changed significantly, you can carry forward the previous year's figures. Document your methodology clearly for audit purposes.
• Conservative estimation: If no prior data exists, estimate using industry benchmarks for the relevant product category. Apply conservative assumptions (higher weights, less recyclable materials) to avoid under-reporting, which carries more regulatory risk than slight over-reporting.

In either case, flag estimated data clearly in your records. The DEFRA RPD data file does not currently have a specific field for estimated vs. actual data, but your internal documentation should distinguish between the two. If your submission is ever audited, being able to demonstrate a reasonable estimation methodology is far better than having unexplained gaps.

The Data Validation Problem at Scale

Even when you successfully collect data from every supplier, the compilation and validation phase presents its own challenges. When you are merging data from 100+ sources into a single RPD-compliant dataset, inconsistencies compound.

Consider a business with 150 suppliers, each providing data on an average of 8 packaging components. That is 1,200 individual data rows, each with up to 15 fields. A 5% error rate, which is optimistic for manually collected data, means 60 errors that need identification and correction. Some of those errors will be obvious (a negative weight, a blank material field). Others will be subtle (a component classified as household when the product is sold exclusively to commercial catering).

Automated validation is not a luxury at this scale. It is a necessity. The question is whether you build that validation into your collection process (catching errors early) or apply it during compilation (catching errors late, when the supplier may no longer be responsive).

"The businesses that achieve 95%+ data accuracy in their EPR submissions are not the ones with the most resources. They are the ones that validate at the point of collection rather than the point of submission."

How Repackd Solves Supplier Data Collection

We built Repackd's supplier data collection features specifically to address the challenges outlined in this article. Rather than replacing your supplier relationships, Repackd provides the infrastructure to make those interactions structured, trackable, and scalable.

Branded Supplier Portal

Each supplier receives a unique invitation link to a branded portal where they can see exactly which product lines they need to provide data for. The interface is designed for people who are not packaging compliance experts. Guided forms walk suppliers through each field with contextual help, definitions, and examples. Material type selection uses a structured dropdown aligned to DEFRA categories, eliminating free-text ambiguity.

Built-In Validation

As suppliers enter data, real-time validation rules check for common errors. Weight ranges are verified against expected benchmarks for each packaging format. Material and format combinations are cross-checked for plausibility. Missing fields are flagged before the supplier can submit. This means the data that reaches your dashboard has already passed a first round of quality checks.

Automated Chase Sequences

Repackd automatically sends reminder emails to suppliers who have not yet completed their submissions, following a configurable chase cadence. You can see real-time progress on a dashboard showing which suppliers have submitted, which are in progress, and which have not started. No more manually tracking response rates in a separate spreadsheet.

Instant Compilation

Once supplier data is collected, Repackd compiles it alongside your internally-sourced packaging data into a single dataset, automatically formatted for RPD submission. RAM assessments are applied to every component, fee projections are calculated, and the full dataset is available for review before you submit.

Building Supplier Relationships That Support Compliance

Beyond the mechanics of data collection, there is a relationship dimension that deserves attention. Suppliers who feel that your data requests are burdensome, confusing, or endless will deprioritise them. Suppliers who see the process as straightforward and respectful of their time will engage proactively.

A few principles that improve supplier engagement:

• Explain the regulatory context once, clearly. Many suppliers do not understand EPR. A brief, well-written explainer helps them understand why their data matters and reduces resistance.
• Be consistent year-to-year. If you change your template, format, or process every reporting cycle, suppliers lose confidence and delay responding. Standardise your approach and stick with it.
• Provide feedback. If a supplier's data helped you achieve a better RAM rating or avoid a compliance issue, tell them. Positive feedback reinforces the behaviour you want.
• Respect their time. Only ask for data you actually need. Do not request information "just in case" or add fields that are not required for your regulatory submission. Every unnecessary field reduces response rates.
• Offer support. Some suppliers genuinely do not know how to weigh a packaging component or classify a material. Offering a 15-minute phone call to walk through the process with their team can unlock data that months of emails failed to produce.

Looking Ahead: The Future of Supply Chain Data in EPR

The direction of travel under the UK's EPR scheme points toward increasing data requirements, not fewer. Future compliance years may introduce requirements for recycled content declarations, supplier-level carbon footprint data, and chain-of-custody documentation for recycled materials. The Digital Waste Tracking service, currently in development, will eventually create an end-to-end digital trail from packaging production through to waste management.

Businesses that build robust, scalable supplier data collection processes now will be well-positioned for these future requirements. Those that continue to rely on ad hoc email and spreadsheet approaches will find themselves rebuilding their process every time the regulatory bar rises.

The investment in getting supplier data collection right is not just about meeting the 2026 reporting deadline. It is about building the data infrastructure that will underpin your compliance obligations for the next decade.