Euro Plant Tray takes important steps for the future

Strategic decisions will continue to be made by the EPT eG members, so that the opinions and needs of the various supply chain partners will be basis for all developments of the future industry solution.

After Dirk Bansemers appointment as MD, Rupert Fey joined the board of directors. Thanks to his international experience and networks in plant production, Mr Fey thus represents the viewpoint of the production companies on the board.

Jutta Lehmann, Chairwoman of the Supervisory Board of EPT eG: "We congratulate Mr Bansemer on his new role in the GmbH. He has been involved in the EPT development since the very beginning and thus brings valuable knowledge from the entire project as well as many years of management experience from his retail time at OBI. At the same time, we are very pleased to have Rupert Fey as a new board member. This means that we now also have the direct input of the producers with whom he is particularly associated on the EPT committees. This does justice to our approach and goal of having all levels of the supply chain represented in the committees as far as possible.

In addition to organisational developments, further operational decisions were made at the cooperative meeting in June:

Together, the members evaluated the tests carried out in spring 2023. In several supply chains, 40,000 trays from 2 suppliers were evaluated. Both designs were generally rated positively in terms of handling. In its final decision, the cooperative assembly followed the recommendation of the working group, the board and the supervisory board and voted in favour of the tray from the company Walther Faltsysteme, which is suitable for pots of 10-11cm in a format comparable to Normpak 400.

"Both test trays were judged to be very good by all participants," said Flora Späth, board member of EPT eG and head of the working group. "Even during the test phase, we received regular feedback from the participants and were always able to discuss constructive change requests directly with the producers. We are impressed by the professionalism of the suppliers and the speed with which our suggestions were implemented. In the end, however, a decision had to be made so that we can focus on the final details and achieve our goal of launching the product in spring 2024. We look forward to continue the work with Walther on the development of the first market model."

For 2024, the expected production is estimated at just under 4 million trays, which will avoid the use of 16 million disposable trays or more than 2,000 tonnes of plastic waste, assuming four rotations per year.

The members also agree on the future rental models. Contracts with terms of 1, 3, 5 and 10 years are to be offered on the market by EPT GmbH.

Thomas Berthold, board member and representative of the FM Group: "In addition to the rental models, we have also agreed on our rental contracts and general terms and conditions. This will allow us to work on further steps during the summer months including tendering for a pool manager who will support us in the logistics processes.

The tender will be carried out with internal resources and in cooperation with the members and participants of our workgroup. This will ensure that we assess the services offered by the providers in line with the market expectations and find a suitable partner for our future logistics taking the needs of the Green supply chain into account."

EPT eG currently consists of 30 members from Germany, Austria, France, Switzerland, the Netherlands and Norway.

Follow EPT's development on LinkedIn linkedin/company/europlanttray and visit www.europlanttray.com for more information.