Producer or manufacturer? The PPWR roles

Few pairs of terms in the PPWR cause as much confusion as “producer” and “manufacturer”. In everyday use both words mean the same thing — whoever makes something. In Regulation (EU) 2025/40 they denote two different roles with two different catalogues of obligations: the producer is answerable for the packaging meeting the requirements. The manufacturer is answerable for its later disposal being financed and reported. A company can be both at once, only one of the two, or slide into one of them unintentionally. This article separates them cleanly — and shows how to recognise your own role.

Producer — core

Answerable for the conformity of the packaging (Art. 15)

Manufacturer — core

Answerable for extended producer responsibility (Art. 44, 45)

Producer — evidence

Technical documentation (Annex VII) + EU declaration of conformity (Art. 39)

Manufacturer — evidence

Registration in the national producer register, per member state (Art. 44(2))

Role switch

Own brand or a conformity-relevant change makes you a producer (Art. 21)

Accumulation

Holding several roles at once is the norm, not the exception

Why the two terms are so often confused

The confusion is in good part a translation problem. The English original text uses “manufacturer” and “producer” — two words that in German would both naturally be rendered as “Hersteller”. The official German translation settled on “Erzeuger” and “Hersteller”, and thereby on a pair that is effectively synonymous in ordinary usage. Making matters worse, the German Packaging Act has used the term “Hersteller” for years in its own, differently pitched sense. Assign the roles by instinct and you will very likely get them wrong — and wrong in the expensive direction, because the producer obligations are the more demanding ones.

The second reason is structural: the two roles hang off entirely different anchor points. The producer role attaches to the product — whose name stands behind this packaging? The manufacturer role attaches to the territory — who first makes it available in this member state? From that follows an asymmetry that surprises people in practice: for a given piece of packaging there is exactly one producer in the supply chain, but depending on the sales territory several manufacturers, because the registration duty applies separately in every member state concerned.

The producer: answerable for the packaging itself

A producer is anyone who manufactures packaging or a packaged product, or has it designed or manufactured under their own name or brand, and places it on the market. What matters is not who operates the machine but whose name is on the packaging. A brand owner who buys in folding cartons entirely is a producer — the carton plant that produces them under contract is not. This role carries the main substantive burden of the regulation.

• Conformity assessment before placing on the market — for packaging this is internal production control under Module A, i.e. a self-assessment without a notified body (Annex VII).
• Create and keep technical documentation for each piece of packaging (Annex VII).
• Issue the EU declaration of conformity and thereby assume responsibility for conformity (Art. 39(4), Art. 15(2)).
• Retention: five years for single-use packaging, ten years for reusable packaging (Art. 15(3)).
• Apply identification — type, batch or serial number plus name and address, where applicable via QR code or data carrier (Art. 15(5), (6)).
• Produce the documents within ten days on a reasoned request from the authority.

The manufacturer: answerable for what comes afterwards

A manufacturer within the meaning of the PPWR is anyone who makes packaging or packaged products available on the territory of a member state for the first time, or who unpacks them there as a non-end user (Art. 45(1)). This role has nothing to do with the properties of the packaging — it governs who finances and reports the later collection, sorting and treatment. That is extended producer responsibility, handled in Germany so far through LUCID and the dual systems.

• Registration in the national producer register — separately in every member state in which you first make available or unpack (Art. 44(2)).
• Without registration, making available for the first time is prohibited (Art. 44(4)) — that is a barrier to market access, not a formality.
• Annual data report by 1 June for the full preceding year (Art. 44(7)).
• Financial contributions covering collection and treatment (Art. 45(2)) — eco-modulated by recyclability (Art. 6(8)).
• Compliance individually or collectively through a producer responsibility organisation, which itself needs an authorisation (Art. 46, 47).
• Simplified reporting below 10 tonnes a year — though that does not exempt you from registration (Art. 44(8)).

The normal case: one company, both roles

In practice the separation is rarely as clean as the table suggests. A German brand owner selling in Germany, Austria and France is the producer of its packaging — once, product-related — and at the same time a manufacturer in all three countries, so registered and reporting three times over. The obligations apply cumulatively: fill several functions and you meet all the associated catalogues side by side, not optionally. This is exactly where the first stocktake fails in many projects — it assigns one role to the company rather than the applicable roles to each product line in each market.

How you become a producer without meaning to

The practically most important mechanism in the whole role logic sits in Art. 21: anyone who passes on packaging already placed on the market under their own name or brand, or modifies it in a way that may affect conformity, is deemed a producer themselves — with the full burden of obligations. This catches companies that see themselves as pure distributors or importers and have therefore never built any technical documentation.

• Private label: a retailer has goods produced and sells them under its own label — it is a producer, not a distributor.
• Relabelling: applying your own label to the sales packaging can trigger the role switch.
• Repacking: reconfiguring goods for your own distribution means intervening in the packaging.
• Conformity-relevant change: any intervention touching material, construction or labelling.

The remaining roles in brief

• Importer (Art. 18): brings goods into the EU from a third country, verifies the producer obligations before placing on the market, keeps a copy of the EU declaration of conformity (Art. 18(7)) and adds its own contact details (Art. 18(3)).
• Distributor (Art. 19): acts with due care and checks, among other things, whether the upstream supplier is entered in the producer register.
• Authorised representative (Art. 17): may keep the technical documentation and declaration but not create them — the duty to create stays with the producer (Art. 17(2)).
• Authorised representative for extended producer responsibility (Art. 45(3)): the equivalent construct on the EPR side for manufacturers without an establishment in the member state concerned.
• Online platforms and fulfilment service providers (Art. 45(4)–(8)): verify registration or self-certification of the manufacturers selling through them.

Special case: microenterprises

How to determine your role

The assignment is not made at company level but per product line and per sales market. Four questions get you to the answer in most cases — and in this order, because the first already triggers the most demanding burden of obligations.

• Is your name or brand on the packaging, or do you have goods made under your own name? Then you are a producer.
• Do you modify packaging already placed on the market in a conformity-relevant way, or relabel it? Then you become one under Art. 21.
• Do you make packaging or packaged goods available in a member state for the first time, or unpack them there as a non-end user? Then you are a manufacturer there — and you ask this question separately for every country.
• Do you import from a third country or pass goods on unchanged under someone else’s brand? Then the importer or distributor obligations apply.