连锁餐饮换包材，供应商要交哪三类证据？

Restaurant chains are changing packaging not because PE has ceased to work, but because procurement objectives have changed: where proving that a package worked used to be enough, the final SKU must now demonstrate safety, manufacturability, material reduction, end-of-life outcomes and supply-chain accountability at the same time.

2026 · Policy Milestones for Material Changes

12 Aug PPWR begins phased application　· 15 Aug Ecological and Environmental Code takes effect　· 1 Sep Beijing Guidelines take effect

Four Evidence Benchmarks

116 / 9 batches of paper containers inspected / non-compliant　· 16 food categories covered by packaging solutions

5 / 10 years: EU document-retention periods　· 177.8 kg of packaging waste per person in the EU

Why Switch Now? PE Has Not Failed; Procurement Now Demands Five More Answers

Traditional, mature structures such as PE extrusion coating have not suddenly stopped working. Peer-reviewed research shows that polymer extrusion coatings on paper or paperboard can provide heat sealing and barriers to liquids, gases and grease; polyolefins such as PE remain common coating materials.

What has changed is the procurement objective. Beyond safety, barrier performance, heat sealing and scalable manufacturing, buyers must now address plastics reduction or lightweighting, fibre repulpability, the boundaries of carbon and environmental claims, actual municipal acceptance, and consistent multi-store delivery and traceability. Changing materials is not simply replacing PE with another material name; it is about ensuring that the final SKU meets more objectives simultaneously.

Research sources:Wiley pilot-scale coating study; European Commission PPWR application timeline

Why One Certificate Is Not Enough

In 2025, national supervision sampling inspected 116 batches of paper containers for food contact and found 9 batches non-compliant, or approximately 7.8%. Findings included fluorescent substances and sensory characteristics as well as compression resistance and cup-body stiffness. The sampling results do not represent the entire market, but they show that finished food containers require both chemical-safety and structural-performance testing.

A compliant material does not automatically ensure compliant cup-body stiffness. Likewise, compliant base paper does not automatically mean that the final SKU, after printing, coating and forming, is free from odour, migration or leakage risks.

Research source:State Administration for Market Regulation: National Supervision Sampling Inspection

Policy Extends Responsibility to the SKU, Supply Chain and Actual End-of-Life Destination

China’s Ecological and Environmental Code took effect on 15 August 2026. Article 998 covers the use of single-use plastic products and recycling reports, while Article 1000 addresses green procurement and green supply chains. These principle-based provisions encourage more rigorous procurement records but do not require every supplier to submit the same document set.

Beijing standard DB11/T 2510—2026 has been published and will take effect on 1 September. The official interpretation divides meal packaging into simple and sealed packaging and uses whether the soup level exceeds one-quarter of the container height as one classification criterion. This shows that menu and use scenarios must inform packaging selection.

The EU PPWR has applied in stages since 12 August. Manufacturers must complete a conformity assessment and prepare technical documentation and an EU declaration of conformity. Documentation must be retained for five years for single-use packaging and ten years for reusable packaging. Most obligations scheduled for 2030 have not taken effect early.

Evidence Type 01 · SAFETY & COMPLIANCE

Safety and Compliance Evidence: Prove the Final SKU Is Fit for Its Intended Conditions of Use

The starting point is a version-controlled bill of materials: identify the base paper or resin, coating, plastic layer, adhesive, ink, masterbatch, seal, cup lid and internal and external surface treatments; specify the food-contact surface and the entity responsible for the finished article. A material name, brand claim or single-layer test report cannot replace a structural specification.

Intended use must be translated into test conditions: food type, temperature, duration, hot filling, microwave use, freeze-and-reheat conditions and the surface-area-to-volume ratio. GB 4806.8—2022 applies to paper and paperboard materials and articles for food contact. GB 4806.10—2025 covers coatings and coating layers; it has been published and will replace the 2016 edition on 2 September.

Migration, sensory characteristics, substances of concern and other safety parameters must be tied to the final SKU, batch and test method. Changes to the formulation, basis weight, coat weight, curing conditions or processing site should trigger a risk assessment and, where necessary, retesting.

EU food-contact packaging is subject to three PFAS limits—25 ppb, 250 ppb and 50 ppm—each based on a different measurement basis. European Commission guidance also notes that the EU has no harmonised PFAS test method. A “fluorine-free” claim must therefore specify the analyte, method, limit of detection and sample construction.

Research sources:National Health Commission standards catalogue; EU PPWR implementation guidance

Evidence Type 02 · PRODUCTION & USE

Production and Use Evidence: Prove It Can Be Manufactured Consistently and Perform Reliably Across Stores

Foodservice packaging has no context-free performance. Meituan disclosed that its green packaging solutions cover 16 food categories; by the end of 2025, it had incubated and deployed 43 solutions comprising more than 4.15 million green packaging items. This is a corporate disclosure, but the 16 categories reveal the procurement logic: soup noodles, fried rice, fried foods, iced drinks and pizza should not share one set of validation conditions.

A real-world scenario matrix should include the food, temperature, filling and delivery time, stacking, shaking, dropping, condensation and opening actions. Grease resistance, water resistance, gas barrier, heat sealing, formability, compression strength and cup-body stiffness should address specific failure modes, rather than showcase one optimum value detached from the use scenario.

Continuous production trials should record line speed, coat weight, drying and curing, the heat-sealing temperature window, forming stability, reject rate, and the effects of roll and batch changeovers. A structure that can be adjusted manually in a sample room may have a very different cross-site rollout cost if it requires slower line speeds or additional manual inspection.

Store trials should document failures at edges, corners, walls, seams and lid interfaces: whether the package softens, deforms, transfers odour or flavour, cracks or leaks after transport, and how much performance varies within and across batches. Only when failure records feed back into the bill of materials and process controls is the product repeatable rather than an occasional pass.

Evidence Type 03 · DELIVERY & END-OF-LIFE

Delivery and End-of-Life Evidence: Prove Continuity of Supply and Substantiate Environmental Claims

Scaled delivery begins with a quality system. Suppliers should provide a certificate of analysis or equivalent batch-release record for each batch and establish traceability from raw-material batch to production batch, final SKU and destination store. Changes to base paper, coatings, adhesives, equipment, plants or key parameters require advance notification, risk assessment and, where necessary, retesting.

Environmental claims must be tied to the target geography. The Cepi laboratory method can simulate disintegration, screening and papermaking and measure coarse rejects, fine rejects and recovered-pulp quality. It supports technical recyclability, but it does not automatically prove that the target city will collect, sort and send the package to a compatible paper mill. Local disposal categories, collection, sorting, treatment and the receiving facility must also be identified.

Reuse programmes must substantiate return rates, number of rotations, cleaning and sanitisation, losses and reverse logistics. Composting programmes must separately verify the certified object, final SKU, thickness, and the availability of separate collection and accepting facilities in the target region. Without a real pathway, the claim can only state that the product “technically meets a specified condition.”

In 2023, the EU generated 79.7 million tonnes of packaging waste, or 177.8 kg per person; paper and cardboard accounted for 40.4%. End-of-life pressure on this scale means that “designed for recycling” must be followed by the question: where does it actually go?

Research sources:Cepi recyclability test method; 4evergreen Recyclability Evaluation Protocol; Eurostat packaging-waste statistics

From Prototype to Scaled Delivery

Scenario definition |The buyer provides the menu, temperature and duration, store equipment, delivery distance, target geography and intended environmental claims. The supplier provides the first version of the bill of materials, an applicability matrix and a risk register.

Final SKU |Safety and compliance, continuous production trials, transport and use, batch controls and the end-of-life pathway are developed together. No P0 issue can be offset by an advantage in another category.

Store pilot |Use representative high-risk menu items and delivery routes to record leakage, deformation, complaints, yield and delivery performance. A pilot is not the endpoint of scaled adoption.

Multi-store rollout |Submit batch data and monitor exceptions and changes. Environmental claims can then be progressively strengthened with actual collection, recycling or reuse data.

The Strongest Counterargument: Will Three Evidence Categories Shut Out Smaller Suppliers?

They will increase cost and lead time. Jiumaojiu disclosed that it spent RMB 3.35 million on environmentally friendly packaging in 2025, equal to 5.21% of its total packaging expenditure. This single-company figure does not represent the industry, but it shows that green packaging remains a procurement project requiring a budget and phased implementation.

The solution is not to eliminate evidence but to tier it. Dry, cool, short-duration foods and simple structures can use a basic evidence package; hot soup, high-grease foods, long delivery times, microwave use and multilayer structures require enhanced validation; and scaled procurement, multi-site deployment, EU exports or public recycling or compostability claims require the full package. Food-safety gates do not become less stringent for smaller companies.

Supplier competitiveness is not measured by certificate count. More valuable capabilities are mapping reports to the exact SKU, identifying evidence gaps, using one continuous production trial to answer several questions, and updating evidence quickly when formulations or use scenarios change.

Research source:Jiumaojiu 2025 ESG Report

Paper Industry Analysis · Let the Numbers Speak

The more professional suppliers of the future will not necessarily hold the most certificates. They will be able to answer more quickly: Which SKU does the evidence cover? Under what conditions does it apply? Who owns responsibility for changes? Where does the package actually go after use?