Case study · 2025 reporting cycle
EPR fees landed at 1.8% of net sales. Finance lacked visibility.
National grocery chain · 500+ locations · 2,000+ SKU private label portfolio
The problem
With over 2,000 private label SKUs and no packaging data on file, the grocer's EPR reporting had to start from scratch. Financially, no accruals were in place in 2024 to plan for the January 2026 liability. With the first filing deadline approaching, the finance team had no basis to estimate fees, and the vendor base was too large for a traditional data collection effort.
Our impact
Physical teardowns on high-volume items and archetype mapping across the balance produced 8,070 classified SKU-components, each aligned to state reporting and fee schedules. Total fees landed at 1.8% of net sales in those states. The spread across categories was 17x, with foam tableware and bottled water carrying fees as high as 27–57% of their retail price. Finance ended with firm reserve estimates, a category-level breakdown, and a filing-ready report before the first invoice arrived.
By category
Chart data to come.
Source: The Swedesford Group engagement model.
The engagement