As Chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Beer Group, one issue has dominated conversations with brewers and publicans this year: Extended Producer Responsibility for Packaging, or EPR.
EPR is a major new packaging obligation introduced this April. It applies to brand owners and importers of packaging that could end up in household waste streams. Under the scheme, businesses pay fees based on the weight and type of packaging they use – glass, cardboard, plastic, paper. These charges are designed to raise £1.4 billion annually to fund local authorities’ recycling and waste management.
On paper, the ideology behind EPR is brilliant. The principle that “the polluter pays” is hard to argue with. It should incentivise companies to design packaging that is reusable, recyclable and durable, and it aims to promote a circular economy where waste is minimised. Few would dispute these goals.
But the reality for Britain’s pubs and breweries is starkly different. For many, EPR is not a nudge towards sustainability but a cost they can’t sustain.
Take Gower Brewery in my constituency. Laura James is a sales manager for this independent business, she told me their costs have soared since April. Every six to eight weeks, they receive a delivery of empty glass bottles – around half a million a year. Since EPR came in, their supplier has added £5,000 to each delivery. That’s roughly an extra £45,000 annually just for bottles. For a small brewery, that is crippling.
And Gower Brewery is not alone. The British Beer and Pub Association estimates EPR fees for glass packaging will cost brewers nationwide £124 million a year. My first call to Government is simple: review these glass fees. At present, they add roughly 6p per bottle – a figure that risks driving businesses under.
In theory, breweries could switch to cans or introduce bottle deposit schemes. In practice, both options require investment they simply do not have. A deposit scheme would need warehouses, bottle-washing equipment and extra staff. Even then, there’s no guarantee reused bottles would meet safety standards.
Then there’s the issue of double charging. Pubs pay EPR fees passed on by suppliers, but they also pay commercial waste disposal charges for the same items – bottles and containers that never leave their premises. DEFRA admits this is unfair and contrary to the policy’s intent. Yet the earliest fix is pencilled in for 2028. I believe an urgent interim solution needs to be found.
The administrative burden is another headache. Every item of packaging – from bottles to cardboard trays to plastic wrap – must be weighed and logged on a portal. Each customer has a separate portal. It’s a time-consuming process that adds cost without adding value.
And uncertainty is holding pubs and brewers back. Businesses still lack clarity on final fee levels and retrospective charges. Supermarkets may soon ask for packaging changes – for example, insisting on cardboard instead of plastic wrap – leaving breweries scrambling for storage space and cash. This unpredictability stifles investment and growth.
Let’s be clear: the brewing and pub sector supports the Government’s environmental ambitions. They want to reduce waste, boost recycling and build a circular economy. But the current implementation of EPR is flawed. It risks punishing the very businesses that keep our communities alive.
So, what needs to happen? Three things:
- Resolve double charging – or at least introduce an interim measure before 2028.
- Review glass fees – they are disproportionately high and could push businesses towards less recyclable materials like plastic.
- Provide flexibility on accounting rules – allowing EPR costs to be spread across the year, rather than absorbed in one hit each April.
Britain’s pubs and breweries have endured a bruising year. Beer duty rises, wage increases and now EPR have combined to create a perfect storm. If we want growth, we must act now to ease the transition to this new packaging requirement. Only then can the beer industry focus on creating jobs not cutting them.
