Greiner Innoventures GmbH (100% subsidiary of Greiner AG) is a corporate business angel and company builder with focus on circularity solutions / new materials.

Challenge Summary:

Packaging in a reuse application is difficult to track and trace throughout the lifecycle of a container (e.g., cup/plate/bottle). However, tracking usage is crucial to analyzing and managing packaging inventory:

1. how many times a container has been used
2. when it must be discarded from the cycle (end of life)
3. how many containers are currently in the system
4. when new containers are needed (procurement)
5. where is the product in the reuse cycle (at the restaurant, at cleaning, at the user, etc.)

Solutions for packaging in a closed loop reuse system must be cost effective (scalable) and resilient (hardware and software – e.g., QR code and tracking platform).

We are looking for a solution that ideally:

• Is resistant to cleaning and disinfection applications (e.g., industrial washing facilities).
• Is convenient for customer experience at the “front end” = linking user and packaging (sign-up/hand-off).
• Is easy to handle at the “back end”, as an agnostic solution for different applications (e.g., cups/bottles/plates) and for different technologies (e.g., image recognition).