Service Estonia Food & Packaging
picture on top: Bepco
Our offer is simple, we develop circular systems around universal crates, pallets or dollies that improve efficiency for all the elements of the supply chain, from producer via wholesaler to the consumer in the store.
We provide a complete system to handle all product movements – RTI’s (returnable transport item) rentals, returning transport, washing, sorting, stocking, repairing and asset management. Through this system we enable users to utilize the same crates and pallets across the Baltic states and Scandinavia.
Adding further to the efficiency, Bepco is developing a Pan Baltic RFID infrastructure that offers vastly improved product tracing to all parts of the supply chain. We believe that fewer types of universal crates as well as reuse, instead of single use, are keys to decreasing packaging waste, reducing environmental impact and improving efficiency.
What is the mission of the project in a sentence?
Bepco’s mission is developing a universal and efficient returnable transport packaging system, which can be used to deliver all categories of products from producers to stores. There is no reason for using more than one type of crate.
Where and when was Bepco started?
Bepco was launched in Estonia in 2010.
Where (in which countries) is the service offered today?
In Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.
To whom is this service aimed?
The Bepco pooling service is developed for food producers and retailers, but it is also widely utilized by, for example, DIY and electronics goods delivery.
picture: Bepco
What do you consider to be the most innovative aspects of your concept?
Our RTI's (returnable transport items) are specially designed for dairy products. Ours is the most efficient crate system for the dairy industry. Dairy primary packaging has become widely standardised all over the world, having been dimensioned to fit well onto EUR-pallets. Bepco has solved it! All our RTI 's are also equipped with RFID tags, and we aim to be fully paper-free throughout the supply chain.
What are the most important impacts of your service in terms of sustainability?
We reuse the material to produce new crates. We reclaim and replace all broken crates free of charge. The lifetime of the first raw material is approximately 30 years. After that, we add 10% new material. Our energy saving, high volume, state of the art washing service centres are 30% more efficient than 100 smaller washing stations at producer’s premises.
Which aspects are particularly interesting from a design perspective?
A unique design feature is that Bepco crates are fully compatible with all categories of products. There is no need for using different standards. This greatly increases efficiency in retailer distribution centres.
Do you also offer the service digitally?
We operate a fully paper-free service providing tools and platforms to all our partners, free of charge.
What are some interesting numbers about the project?
Autumn 2020:
We operate with a fleet of 2 000 000 crates. This corresponds to avoiding about 50 000 000 one-way packaging waste units annually. Due to the crates being nestable, 50% of returning transport is avoided. This equals 6 000 trucks.
What happens next? What are your goals?
We are expanding our portfolio to other returnable products such as plastic pallets. We are also expanding to other countries.
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