Shelf Ready Packaging appears to be one potential solution to address store operations efficiency, shelf replenishment and product availability, visibilty and access. There is currently a multiplication of local and proprietary SRP initiatives in Europe. There is a risk of proliferation of contradictory guidelines, which would endanger the initial vision of bringing more value to the consumer.

This ECR Europe blue book provides guidance on how to look at the introduction of Shelf Ready Packaging (SRP) collaboratively. It is the culmination of 11 months of work by the ECR Europe Shelf Ready Packaging project team, where manufacturers, ECR national representatives and packaging suppliers worked jointly with retailers, ably supported by Accenture.

The new blue book provides:

• a set of guiding principles,
• a business case methodology to evaluate the potential of SRP and help find the most appropriate solution,
• functional requirements to ensure a certain degree of harmonisation of SRP across European retailers guidance on how to make sure that SRP is well implemented in the store.
• A set of supporting tools to apply the methodology.

The project co-chairs, Xavier Hua of Carrefour and Bernard Fradin of Kraft Foods are convinced that “this blue book represents a sound basis for further retailer-manufacturer collaboration on Shelf Ready Packaging and provides the right balance for delivering value to the consumer”.