18. Trade and other payables

Trade and other payables mainly comprise trade payables, accruals for various customer incentives and other accrued expenses.

Composition of trade and other payables

Liabilities with an impact on the Group’s revenue

The Group has refund and contract liabilities in respect of liabilities relating to contracts with customers accounted for under the revenue standard.

The Group’s incentive programs relate to trade discounts, volume rebates and other customer incentives linked primarily to aseptic carton sleeves volumes (see also note 6). These programs generally run over a calendar year, resulting in a gradual build-up over the year of an accrual liability against revenue from the sale of aseptic carton sleeves. As of December 31, 2024 and December 31, 2023, the liabilities for customer incentive programs mainly represent incentives earned by customers under programs running over a calendar year that have not yet been settled by the Group. The remaining part represents accruals built up for incentive programs running over periods other than a calendar year (i.e. refund liabilities). The Group has recognized an insignificant amount as revenue in the current period that was included in the balance of liabilities for customer incentive programs at the beginning of the period but was never paid out as the conditions for the incentive payments were not met (also applicable to the comparative period).

The Group’s contract liabilities mainly comprise advance payments received from customers in relation to the sale of aseptic carton sleeves and the sale of aseptic carton filling lines under contracts accounted for under the revenue standard, but also advance payments in relation to the bag-in-box, spouted pouch and chilled carton businesses. These advance payments are recognized as revenue within a short time frame from their initial recognition in the statement of financial position. As of December 31, 2024, the Group had contract liabilities of €35.4 million (€62.0 million as of December 31, 2023). These advance payments are presented as part of the advance payments in the table above (see also the section below). The amount of advance payments recognized as of December 31, 2023 relating to the sale of packaging material and the sale of filling lines and other related equipment under contracts accounted for under the revenue standard has been recognized as revenue in 2024.

The Group also has advance payments received from customers relating to aseptic carton filling lines that will be deployed under contracts that qualify to be accounted for as operating leases. If payments are received from customers before the filling line deployment date, they are initially recognized as part of “Trade and other payables” and presented as part of the advance payments in the table above (€96.4 million as of December 31, 2024 and €97.9 million as of December 31, 2023). On deployment of a filling line, the related advance payments received are reclassified to “Other liabilities” and presented as deferred revenue liabilities. These deferred revenue liabilities are then released and recognized as revenue over a certain period (see note 20).

Other current and non-current payables include liabilities of a total of €16.3 million as of December 31, 2024 (17.3 million as of December 31, 2023) that relate to aseptic carton filling lines that, via the involvement of a financing partner, are deployed with the Group’s customers. Under such a sale and lease arrangement, the financing partner pays the Group for a filling line and enters into a filling line lease contract, generally over six years, with the Group’s customer. The Group has an obligation to purchase the filling line from the financing partner at the end of the lease term. The liability towards the financing partner initially reduces the amount that is recognized as a deferred revenue liability (see the section above and note 20). The liability gets settled on the repurchase of the filling line by the Group. These arrangements qualify to be accounted for as operating leases (see also note 5.5.2). The Group generally enters into new customer contracts for the filling lines that are purchased from the financing partner at the end of these arrangements.