# Jessie Schwartz

Jessie Schwartz shares practical perspectives on packaging strategy, engineering, and sustainability. Their LinkedIn posts examine how packaging choices affect costs, shipping, product performance, shelf presentation, and regulations such as extended producer responsibility (EPR).

- Profile: https://b2binfluencer.marketing/creators/jessie-schwartz/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jessie-schwartz-strat-pack-partners
- LinkedIn followers: 4,981
- Based on 24 dated posts, latest 2026-09-22

## Summary

They are most useful for expert-led B2B education on packaging strategy, total delivered cost, sustainability, and EPR compliance.

- Best for: Fits a B2B thought-leadership webinar for CPG packaging, sustainability, and operations leaders.
- Not for: Does not fit mass-market DTC campaigns seeking unboxing videos, promo codes, or Gen Z impulse purchases.
- Check first: Confirm LinkedIn demographics and recent EPR post or webinar performance data before contacting them.

### Takeaways

- A $105 to $27 per package example pairs a more expensive insulated mailer with slower shipping.
- EPR compliance work is not the same as building a system for escalating requirements.
- Oregon recycling modernization shows design decisions must account for real collection and sorting systems.

## Main ideas

- **The cheapest package can make for the most expensive delivery**: Schwartz argues that packaging should be priced by total delivered cost, not by the unit cost of the mailer or shipper. In a direct-to-consumer cold-chain example, a $2 bubble mailer with $3 gel packs and $100 two-day shipping totals $105 per package. A $6 insulated mailer with the same gel packs and $18 three-day shipping totals $27. The extra $4 in packaging enables slower shipping and saves $78 per package. They also compare a $4–7 insulated shipper with an $18 failed delivery, noting that one missed doorstep erases the packaging savings on several orders.
- **EPR is a business redesign, not a reporting exercise**: After brands register, report, and pay EPR fees, Schwartz hears a common question: “Now what?” Meeting the first reporting deadline does not build a system for escalating requirements, multiple states, or finance scrutiny. They say organizations making progress connect packaging data across engineering, finance, legal, procurement, and sustainability, moving from historical compliance snapshots to forward-looking scenario modeling and cost reduction. Schwartz hosted a LinkedIn Live titled “Beyond Reporting: How Leading Brands Turn EPR Compliance into Enterprise Strategy” and framed the choice as data first, technology second, with cross-functional governance.
- **Packaging has to work for the people and systems that handle it**: Schwartz evaluates packages beyond the design file—through manufacturing, distribution, stocking, merchandising, dispensing, and consumer use. A Kinder display example makes the point: two similar products had different closures and prices, but what stood out was one bottle stocked upside down, making the product name hard to read. Label orientation and container shape can suggest shelf placement, but they do not guarantee execution when someone is stocking quickly or choosing the most stable position. In cold chain, they add, insulated packaging is not like corrugated: stock sizes are built around pharma and meal-kit companies, and custom sizes carry four-to-eight-week lead times and volume commitments. The practical move is to design product packaging around available insulated formats and involve shipping partners before dimensions are fixed.
- **Recycling infrastructure sets the design constraints**: Schwartz argues that recyclability and source-reduction decisions must account for real collection methods, sorting equipment, material recovery capabilities, end markets, and EPR economics—not a theoretical system. After Oregon’s first year under its Recycling Modernization Act, producer funding supported more than 36,000 recycling carts, 11 collection trucks, 34 RecycleOn Centers, and $30 million in sorting-facility upgrades. They say those investments can change the engineering trade-offs. Lightweighting may reduce material and EPR fees, but not if it hurts compression strength, barrier performance, machinability, or damage rates. A material change may improve recyclability only if the package can actually be collected, sorted, and processed at scale.
- **Lightweighting should start with performance requirements**: Schwartz describes lightweighting as one of five source-reduction pathways: reduce plastic without changing the format or consumer experience. Typical moves include thinner rigid-container walls, thinner film that still meets specs, or less plastic label coverage. They say lightweighting often causes the least disruption because the product looks and ships the same, but thinner structures can create vulnerabilities. A gauge reduction that works on the line may not survive distribution, and a small spec-sheet change may require full qualification. Teams that do it well start with what the package must do, then work backward to the minimum material.
- **Look for several business wins in one package change**: Schwartz resists judging a package through one lens. In a Duracell comparison, the paper-based format removes plastic, but they focus on the smaller footprint: the old blister pack had dead air space above the batteries, while the new format appears designed around the product. A smaller package can use materials more efficiently, improve cube utilization, put more product on a pallet or truckload, reduce transport costs, and lower EPR fees in some jurisdictions. In a Kraft Heinz example, reformulating familiar products for lactose-free, gluten-free, or plant-based diets also changes what the package must communicate while maintaining brand recognition and operational requirements.
- **Packaging regulation is becoming enforceable product law**: Schwartz frames the EU’s Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation as a philosophical shift: packaging is now a regulated product with specific, enforceable criteria, not a question of whether it is “sustainable enough” by internal standards. The regulation applies directly across all 27 member states. They list immediate changes: conformity assessment and technical documentation for packaging placed on the EU market; an A-to-E recyclability grade with minimum requirements phasing in from 2030; e-commerce void-fill limits so empty space cannot exceed 40% of the parcel; and PFAS restrictions on food-contact packaging. They warn North American brands that the PPWR, California’s SB 54, and the patchwork of US state EPR programs are moving in the same direction, so packaging decisions cannot be made as separate regional problems.

## Work to read

- [Optimizing Fulfillment Cost: The Total Delivered Cost Model](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/jessie-schwartz-strat-pack-partners_105-vs-27-same-product-same-destination-activity-7424845009507631104-qfnu)
- [Moving Beyond Compliance: Integrating EPR into Enterprise Strategy](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/jessie-schwartz-strat-pack-partners_epr-packaging-packagingcompliance-activity-7498741784655577088-x4CI)
- [Infrastructure Dictates Design: Designing Against Real-World Systems](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/jessie-schwartz-strat-pack-partners_one-year-in-oregons-recycling-modernization-activity-7497653050854080513-iixC)
- [The Multi-Lens Evaluation: Balancing Cost, Logistics, and Sustainability](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/jessie-schwartz-strat-pack-partners_one-of-my-favorite-things-to-do-is-compare-activity-7470859635319693312-i1RS)

## Brand relationships

- **Strategic Packaging Partners** (disclosed_partnership)

## Partnerships

No formal creator sponsorship program, rate card, or booking process is documented in the reviewed LinkedIn posts. Jessie Schwartz writes as part of Strategic Packaging Partners and uses packaging analysis to invite conversations with packaging, operations, and sustainability teams. The clearest promotional format is a Jessie-hosted LinkedIn Live session on turning EPR compliance into enterprise strategy, announced with a topic outline and registration link. Posts also mention meeting teams at PACK EXPO and MD&M Midwest. A buyer planning a webinar can evaluate the EPR session as a relevant expert-led format. Ask for pricing, audience size, deliverables, exclusivity, and lead times.

## Alternatives

- Dan Brown: Choose Dan Brown when the webinar is aimed at sustainability and operations leaders in large organizations, and the buyer problem is turning reported emissions or travel data into decisions people will adopt. His posts show him speaking to university sustainability teams at EAUC and to business leaders at the UN Global Compact summit, with a clear reporting-to-action frame around Scope 3 travel, finance, procurement, estates, and staff engagement. He is the stronger pick when the webinar needs a sustainability-led change story rather than a packaging-compliance story.
- Allen Jacques: Choose Allen Jacques when the webinar is aimed at supply-chain, operations, and finance leaders, and the teaching goal is to show how inventory, shelf life, and long-range planning affect business outcomes. His posts give concrete examples from pharma and biopharma: safety stock eating into shelf life before a product reaches the customer, quality defects found downstream, new-product launches delayed by excess inventory, and supply chain being brought into 10-year planning as a builder rather than a late validator. He is the stronger pick when the webinar needs an operational cost and planning story that supply-chain leaders will recognize.
- Matt Houldsworth: Choose Matt Houldsworth when the webinar is aimed at retail operations and technology leaders, and the buyer problem is the risk hidden inside long-life store systems. His posts show a concrete retail estate example: a Sainsbury’s self-checkout displaying an old Windows build, an outdated SQL Server service pack, and 2014-era hardware, followed by a broader argument about software lifecycle, maintenance ownership, and the cost of unpatched systems. He is the stronger pick when the webinar needs a technology-risk and estate-lifecycle story that retail and operations teams will act on.

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AI-assisted summary of public posts. Audience demographics are not available. Engagement appears only where we checked recent posts. Method: https://b2binfluencer.marketing/methodology/