In today’s world, where sustainability is a growing priority, reusable packaging solutions play a vital role in reducing waste, lowering carbon footprints, and improving supply chain efficiency. Traditional single-use packaging contributes significantly to environmental pollution, filling landfills and increasing CO₂ emissions. By shifting to reusable packaging, businesses can minimize resource consumption, enhance product protection, and create a more circular economy.
IFCO is at the forefront of this transformation, offering reusable packaging containers (RPCs) designed to optimize the fresh grocery supply chain. IFCO’s solutions cater to a wide range of fresh food products, from fruits and vegetables to meat, fish, and baked goods, helping businesses deliver high-quality products sustainably. As the Chief Digital Officer at IFCO, Dr. Sebastian Grams is spearheading efforts to revolutionize fresh food supply chains through digitalization, ensuring greater efficiency and sustainability.
Leading the Digital Shift
A mechanical engineer by education, Dr. Grams started his career at AUDI AG through a dual study program and later earned a doctorate from KIT. He began working in motorsport at Audi, then moved into high-performance powertrain development. Between 2010 and 2018, he held leadership roles in engineering, IT, and digitalization. As CIO of SEAT and CUPRA in Spain, Dr. Grams led their digital transformation and founded SEAT: CODE. From March 2021 to March 2024, he had been CEO of Audi Sport GmbH, returning to where his journey began.
Then he was approached by IFCO with the opportunity to build and drive their digital strategy—a truly exciting challenge, involving the digitalization of a pool of over 400 million assets. It was a perfect fit, as Dr. Grams has always been deeply involved in digital innovation, including developing mobility platforms at SEAT and in-car digital services at Audi. His expertise lies in leveraging technology to drive innovation, enhance customer value, and create sustainable business models.
On his transition from automotive, motorsports, to logistics, Dr. Grams says, “Well, think of it like this: Automotive and motorsports are about speed, precision, and performance. Logistics is about getting the right parts to the right place, at the right time, without a pit stop for delays. It’s the perfect blend of high-speed action and strategic planning, where every second counts, and every tire change (or delivery) is a race against the clock!”
Freshest Packaging Solutions
IFCO is a global leader in reusable packaging solutions for fresh food. The company provides Reusable Packaging Containers (RPCs) that are used to transport fresh produce, meat, baked goods, and other perishables safely and sustainably. By replacing single-use packaging with RPCs, IFCO empowers its customers to participate in the circular economy and to reduce waste, improve supply chain efficiency, and maintain product freshness. Their services also include container pooling, cleaning, tracking, and reverse logistics, supporting retailers and producers in over 50 countries worldwide.
Staying a Step Ahead
At IFCO, staying ahead in the reusable packaging industry is rooted in continuous innovation, deep customer collaboration, and a strong commitment to sustainability. Those are the principles that drove IFCO to pioneer its packaging-as-a-service business model over 30 years ago, when the circular economy was not even a buzzword.
Since then, IFCO has stayed ahead by investing in digitalization, expanding reusable solutions to new categories like meat, bread, and plastic pallets, and building state-of-the-art smart service centers. With a growing team of software and hardware experts, IFCO is transforming supply chains through real-time tracking, data insights, and environmental savings, delivering value that goes beyond packaging.
Driving Digital Transformation
As Chief Digital Officer at IFCO, one of the biggest challenges Dr. Grams faces is bridging the gap between traditional operational methods and the digital future. Understanding customer needs is crucial, but equally important is driving a fundamental shift towards real-time, data-driven decision-making. Many organizations still rely on outdated, static processes, so transforming company culture away from Excel-based thinking and towards intelligent automation and predictive analytics is key.
To overcome these challenges, he focuses on building trust in digital tools by demonstrating their tangible value, whether it’s optimizing supply chains, enhancing transparency, or improving efficiency. It’s about aligning teams across different functions, fostering a mindset that embraces innovation, and ensuring digital insights translate into scalable solutions that truly impact business success.
“By combining technology with a human-centric approach, we can create a future where digitalization becomes second nature rather than a disruption,” he says.
Technology for Enhanced Services
IFCO is harnessing technology and digitalization to revolutionize the fresh grocery supply chain, making it more efficient, sustainable, and customer-friendly. Its digital transformation is centered around data-driven efficiency and supply chain transparency. By leveraging advanced analytics, the company helps businesses optimize the flow of reusable packaging containers (RPCs), reducing waste and streamlining logistics. Through IoT-enabled tracking, IFCO ensures real-time visibility into RPC usage, allowing retailers and producers to monitor their packaging cycles with precision.
These smart solutions not only enhance operational efficiency but also support sustainability efforts by minimizing unnecessary packaging production and disposal.
Through its MyIFCO™ digital services, the company offers a suite of online tools that streamline the management of RPCs. These tools enable businesses to track inventory, place orders, and optimize logistics with minimal effort, reducing waste and improving operational efficiency. By integrating automation into its processes, IFCO ensures that food distribution remains fast, cost-effective, and environmentally responsible.
A key aspect of IFCO’s digital transformation is its track-and-trace solutions, which enhance transparency across the supply chain. These innovations allow retailers and suppliers to monitor the movement of RPCs, ensuring better accountability and reducing inefficiencies. Additionally, under the leadership of Dr. Grams, IFCO is expanding its digital capabilities to develop cutting-edge solutions that further improve customer experience and sustainability. By embracing digitalization, IFCO is not only optimizing logistics but also reinforcing its commitment to a circular economy, where packaging is reused rather than discarded.
Strategies to Drive Innovation and Achieve Goals
Innovation is at the front and center of IFCO’s objectives: developing smart digital solutions that optimize asset tracking, automate logistics, and unlock real-time insights, making operations faster, smarter, and more efficient. At the same time, these innovations also accelerate sustainability by enabling better reuse of packaging, reducing waste through data-driven processes, and enhancing the circular economy model with smarter resource management across the supply chain.
For Dr. Grams, at IFCO, aligning his team’s goals with the company’s mission and vision begins with fostering a shared understanding of their role in building a more sustainable and efficient fresh food supply chain. They ensure that every digital initiative is clearly linked to the broader objectives, emphasizing measurable impact and customer value. Effective collaboration across disciplines is key: his software developers often interact with their colleagues running the business.
By immersing developers in real-world operational challenges, they can build digital solutions that are not just technically advanced but genuinely relevant. In turn, developers create real value for pooling experts by delivering tools that improve visibility, automate key processes, and unlock data-driven insights — ultimately enhancing efficiency, sustainability, and customer satisfaction across IFCO’s global network.
Aligning Profitability and Sustainability
At IFCO, profitability and sustainability are not competing priorities—they are intrinsically linked. Dr. Grams shares that the business model is designed around circular economy principles, meaning that every step we take to enhance efficiency naturally strengthens our commitment to sustainability. A prime example is their approach to transport. By optimizing routes, fill rates, and logistics, they not only reduce costs but also significantly cut CO₂ emissions, minimizing environmental impact.
Similarly, their washing processes follow the same philosophy. Lowering washing costs doesn’t just improve financial performance—it also reduces resource consumption, saving water and energy while maintaining hygiene standards.
At IFCO, every innovation we introduce is geared toward making our operations leaner, greener, and more impactful. By aligning smart financial decisions with sustainable practices, we ensure long-term value for businesses and the planet alike,” says Dr. Grams.
Technology-Driven Transformation
Dr. Grams observes that the reusable packaging and supply chain industry is undergoing a profound transformation, driven by three key technological trends.
- First, IoT-enabled tracking is revolutionizing asset visibility, allowing businesses to monitor packaging in real-time, optimize logistics, and minimize inefficiencies. By integrating smart sensors, companies can ensure seamless traceability, reducing losses and enhancing operational agility.
- Second, blockchain technology is setting new standards for transparency and security. By providing an immutable ledger of transactions, blockchain ensures product origin verification, strengthens supply chain integrity, and minimizes risks associated with counterfeit goods. This technology is reshaping trust and accountability across industries.
- Finally, AI-driven predictive analytics is redefining supply chain efficiency. Through advanced forecasting models, AI helps businesses anticipate demand fluctuations, optimize transportation routes, and manage inventory more effectively—all while reducing costs and carbon emissions.
These innovations are not just improving operations; they’re driving a more sustainable, data-driven future for packaging and logistics.
Vision for the Sustainable Future
In five years, Dr. Grams sees IFCO leading the industry in real-time asset tracking, using AI and IoT to optimize every aspect of its operations, from logistics to resource management.
They will have established smart, data-driven solutions that allow customers to gain deeper insights into their supply chains, reducing waste and cost while improving overall sustainability. IFCO’s digital platforms will seamlessly integrate with all key stakeholders, from producers to retailers, enhancing collaboration and driving the circular economy forward.
Additionally, IFCO will advance in meeting its purpose to make the fresh grocery sustainable, thanks to continuous advancements in sustainable practices and innovative technologies. They will set new standards in both operational excellence and environmental responsibility.
On that note, he concludes our interaction with the following advice for businesses looking to integrate sustainable practices into their operations:
“I’d advise businesses to leverage digital tools like IoT, AI, and data analytics to optimize resource use, reduce waste, and improve efficiency. By integrating real-time tracking, predictive analytics, and smart logistics, businesses can make more informed, sustainable decisions while reducing costs and environmental impact.”
Look into his visionary insights in this digital edition
