Annual report of Dansk Retursystem A/S

Dansk Retursystem A/S has published the company’s 2007 annual report to coincide with the annual general meeting.

The growth trend in the Danish beer and soft drinks market has continued with rising market share for one-way packaging compared with refillable packaging. At the 2007 year end the market share for one-way packaging was 31% – up from 22% in 2006.

2007 saw a 15% decrease in the sales volumes of refillable packaging compared with 2006. Dansk Retursystem A/S is forecasting that refillable packaging will account for almost 60% of the total sales reported to the company in 2008.

Small increase in return percentage

All in all, the return percentage for one-way packaging grew by 1% from 86% in 2006, to 87% in 2007. Dansk Retursystem A/S regards this to be a satisfactory result considering that in the same period the sales of one-way packaging grew by more than 30%.

In 2007, the return percentage for both plastic and glass one-way packaging was over 90% – similar to the return percentage level in other Scandinavian countries. For cans, the status quo is probably the same as last year, meaning that the return percentage for cans continues to remain at 84%.

Many new customers

Dansk Retursystem A/S sees two main reasons for the stagnation of the return percentage for cans: Firstly, it is probably the case that a large number of new customers have entered the market for cans and that to a large extent they have not yet developed the habit of returning cans on which deposits have been paid. Secondly, there is no doubt that the return percentage for cans is still distorted by imports of deposit-free cans from countries such as Germany.

The return percentage for refillable packaging in 2007 was calculated at 104%. The reason why the return percentage is over 100% is primarily because, in a falling market for drinks products sold in refillable packaging, consumers are returning more empty refillable items of packaging than they are purchasing.

The full annual report (in Danish only) can be downloaded here