End Of Year CEO Letter

Langhus, Q4 2022

What a difference a year makes!

You don’t need us to tell you, but things change fast. And not always for the better. War, broken supply chains, raw materials shortage, and unforeseen logistical bottlenecks. Costs skyrocketing, and worryingly: a volatile and fearful global market. This time last year we knew 2022 would be challenging especially concerning wooden pallets, but we of course didn’t imagine anything like this.

We’re here for you. Bigger and more robust

If you only have 5 seconds to spare, this is my main message: We are here for you as always and we are more solid than ever! It is not easy to be consistent these days, all the more reason to drive home this point. SmartRetur is robustly meeting the challenges with a plentiful toolbox; more inventory, sharper digital solutions, better overall logistics, more geographical locations and more people across the Nordics, more precise sustainability reporting and an increasingly diversified pallet offering. In terms of reverse logistics, we have your back!

Wooden pallets: inventory consistency and availability

As the leading reverse logistics provider in the Nordics our unique reach and purchasing power, combined with our market leading IT system offers you superior control, availability and price predictability given the circumstances. With us your “pallet banking” is safe, even if wood globally is getting scarcer by the month. Like you, most of our partners are treating their wooden assets like gold, which is a good idea. Taking care of such valuables are our common responsibility.

Plastic pallets: fast forwarding to the future

Plastic pallets were predicted to replace wooden pallets only partly across non-food industries from around 2030. The real need to upgrade to a better standard (like our industry leading SR-pallets) changed two years ago and accelerated vastly this year. We are developing closed-closed loops for non-food in Sweden and Norway, as well as for food in Denmark.

Our prediction for 2023: more of the same

I wish it was different. But we are experiencing very rough seas that will take time to calm down. Combining resources across industries and markets will continue to be a good way to heed the worst effects of this crisis. As an industry leader it is our duty and role to make sure reusable packaging of all qualities are efficiently taken care of and distributed as is best for our partners and the environment. And that’s what we’ll continue to do!

Please accept my best wishes for a sensible end to 2022 and a fairly predictable 2023!

With warm regards from all of us!