Three brands put a packaging problem they have not solved on the table. Six mixed teams get 30 hours and the whole value chain to answer it. Everything they build is published before the industry week opens.
The empty-space cap. The recyclability grades.
The recycled-content targets. All of it, one date.
PPWR does not ask for a policy or a pledge. It changes what a pack may be made of, how much air it may contain and what has to be printed on it, on fixed dates. A packaging lead who starts the redesign in 2029 has already missed. Most have not started, because the answer needs a converter, a substrate specialist and a designer in the same room, and getting those four into a room takes a year.
PFAS limit in food-contact packaging, per single substance.
In force since 12 Aug 2026Empty-space cap on grouped, transport and e-commerce packaging.
From 1 Jan 2030Only these recyclability grades permitted. Grade C phases out by 2038.
From 1 Jan 2030Harmonised material-composition pictograms mandatory. Every SKU’s artwork changes.
From 12 Aug 2028Every brief comes from a brand or retailer with a real assortment and real numbers, reviewed by an independent knowledge partner before it is published. Two teams attack each one, so every answer has something to be compared against.
Cut void volume across a real e-commerce or grouped-transport assortment, without adding SKUs the warehouse cannot handle. Judged on measured volume reduction and whether the operation could run it on Monday morning.
Redesign a real multilayer or plastic format fibre-first to hit recyclability grade A or B, PFAS-free, without losing shelf life or line speed. Barrier-paper toolkits and a full prototyping lab. Prototypes, not slides.
Turn a bill of materials into an EU Declaration of Conformity, a recyclability grade estimate and a correct pictogram, at SKU scale, with an audit trail. Demoed against a messy real BOM set.
Each of these is a different conversation, so each has its own page.
Your customers state their unsolved problems out loud, with data, in a room you are in. Your material goes into the toolkit of the six teams working on them, and your name goes on a published benchmark four years before the deadline.
See the partner tiers →Bring the packaging problem you have not solved. Two teams work it head to head for 30 hours, from different angles, and you keep every write-up. Two of your people in the room, and no money.
See what it takes →€2,030 in cash to the winning team and a €5,000 build fund to take the work further. An AI engineer in your team building what you decide, the whole value chain as your mentors, and 150 people on the demo floor.
Apply for a seat →An AI innovation studio in Amsterdam. We run Idea Labs and Hack Packs with client teams for a living, and this is that format in public. We carry the event end to end: teams, briefs, toolkits, judging, the legal framework, insurance, venue and the December report, and every euro of the risk.
Machine learning for box-stock and procurement optimisation, cutting void space in transport and e-commerce packaging. Tetrik supplies the dataset and the baseline for the Empty Space track, and does not compete in it.
Forty-five minutes, straight into my diary. Tell me which side of the table you are on and I will walk you through that half.
The go decision is 15 September. Conversations that start now are the ones that shape the format.
