EUDR private label products: who is the operator

Whoever first places the product on the EU market is the operator with due diligence duties — not whoever owns the brand printed on it. If a retailer commissions a factory to make a product under the retailer's own name, and the retailer takes ownership of the goods and introduces them onto the EU market, the retailer is the operator. If the manufacturer keeps ownership until the point of sale and is the one placing the goods on the market, the manufacturer is the operator, whatever name is on the packaging.

Why the brand on the box is not the test

Article 2 of Regulation (EU) 2023/1115, as amended by Regulation (EU) 2025/2650, defines "operator" as the person who, in the course of a commercial activity, places relevant products on the EU market or exports them. A "trader" is anyone further down the chain who makes an already-placed product available on the market without having placed it there themselves. Neither definition mentions branding, labelling or whose name appears on the packaging. Both turn on two facts: who is doing the placing, and whose commercial activity the product belongs to at that moment.

Private label arrangements confuse this because the retailer's name is usually the most visible thing about the product, and it is easy to assume visibility equals responsibility. It does not. A retailer that only puts its name on a product someone else owns and places on the market is not, on that fact alone, the operator.

The test the Commission applies: who owns the goods when they are placed

Commission guidance on contractor and commissioning arrangements under the EUDR works from ownership of the goods at the point of placing, not from branding. Two patterns recur:

• If the contractor — the manufacturer or an intermediary — buys the goods and supplies them to the retailer on a straightforward purchase basis, taking title and arranging the goods' entry onto the EU market itself, the contractor is the operator. The retailer that later sells the branded product is a trader.
• If the retailer owns the goods throughout — commissioning manufacture under an arrangement where title passes to the retailer before or as the goods enter the EU market — the retailer is the operator, even though it never touched the product physically and the manufacturer did all the work of production.

Who owns the goods when placed on the EU market	Who is the operator	Who is the trader
Contract manufacturer owns and imports; retailer buys the finished, already-placed product	Contract manufacturer	Retailer
Retailer owns the goods throughout (commissioned manufacture, title passes to retailer before EU market entry)	Retailer	Contract manufacturer, if EU-established and reselling
Retailer is also the importer of record, taking title at customs clearance	Retailer	—
Non-EU manufacturer sells directly to an EU retailer, who imports under its own name	Retailer, as importer	Non-EU manufacturer has no direct EU obligation

This is the same ownership-based logic the regulation applies everywhere else to "placing on the market": the question is never who made something, but who is commercially responsible for introducing it into the EU for the first time.

Applying it to common private label structures

Three structures account for most private label and retailer-commissioned arrangements.

Retailer-owned specification, contract manufacturer executes. The retailer designs the product, specifies materials and sourcing, and pays a factory to produce it to that specification. If the commercial contract — not just the design brief — has the retailer taking ownership of the goods at the factory gate or on shipment, and the retailer or its agent handles EU import, the retailer is the operator. This is the most common private label structure in UK and EU retail, and it means the retailer, not the factory, carries the due diligence statement obligation, the geolocation requirement and the five-year record-keeping duty.

Manufacturer-owned, retailer buys finished stock. Some private label ranges work the other way: the factory or its trading arm buys the raw commodity, manufactures, imports into the EU, and sells finished, labelled stock to the retailer much as it would to any wholesale buyer. Here the manufacturer, or its EU importer, is the operator, and the retailer is a trader that only needs the due diligence statement reference number, not its own filing. Downstream operators and traders generally no longer have to file their own due diligence statement — this is the scenario that rule exists for.

Non-EU factory, EU retailer imports directly. A UK or EU retailer sourcing private label goods from a factory outside the EU, acting itself as importer of record, is unambiguously the operator: it is the EU-established party placing the product on the market, whatever the factory's role in making it. If the factory is EU-established and does the importing itself before selling to the retailer, the position reverses. Where the manufacturer is outside the EU with no EU presence at all, an authorised representative may be needed for part of the chain, but only if someone intends the non-EU party to carry filing obligations directly rather than leaving that with the EU-established buyer.

Where this catches private label buyers out

Two assumptions cause most of the trouble:

• Assuming the factory's EUDR paperwork covers the retailer. A factory that files a due diligence statement for a shipment it itself places on the market is filing for its own obligation, under its own legal name as operator. If the retailer later takes a different shipment of the same product and places it on the EU market under a different commercial arrangement — buying stock the factory has not yet imported, for instance — the retailer needs its own statement. A statement filed by someone else, for a different placing event, does not transfer.
• Treating "private label" as one legal category. It is not. Two products on the same retailer's shelf, branded identically, can have different operators depending on the specific purchase and import terms behind each one. A retailer running several private label ranges across different suppliers should check the ownership and import structure range by range, not assume one answer covers the whole private label book.

This matters because categories frequently sold private label — coffee and cosmetics containing palm oil derivatives among the heaviest — are squarely in EUDR scope. Getting the operator question wrong here is not a paperwork inconvenience; it means a legally required statement gets filed under the wrong name, or not filed at all.

Group structures: when the retailer and the "manufacturer" are related companies

Retailers increasingly manufacture private label goods through an owned or part-owned subsidiary rather than an independent contract factory. The operator question does not change because the two companies share a parent: each is a separate legal entity, tested and treated separately for EUDR purposes, and ownership of the goods still decides which one is the operator for a given shipment. A retailer that owns a manufacturing subsidiary but structures intercompany sales so the subsidiary takes title and imports first should expect the subsidiary, not the parent retail brand, to be the operator of record. Group ownership does not let a retailer claim operator status by default, or avoid it by default either.

What to settle before your application date

• Identify, for each private label range, which party owns the goods at the point they are placed on, or first made available on, the EU market. The commercial contract, not the product specification or branding agreement, answers this.
• Confirm who is named as importer of record on customs documentation for EU entries — in practice this is usually, though not always, the same party as the operator.
• Put the answer in writing with your supplier or retail partner before your application date, including which party will register in the EU Information System and file the due diligence statement. Both sides assuming the other is responsible is the most common failure in these arrangements.
• Where a single range sources from multiple factories or countries, check the ownership structure for each one separately rather than assuming the whole range is handled the same way.

One point remains genuinely open: where a retailer's name is the only one on the packaging but a separate, unrelated company technically executes the customs import, published Commission guidance does not give a single clean answer. It depends on the customs and contractual detail of who is "placing" the goods on the market — exactly the fact pattern the Commission's case-by-case guidance exists to resolve, rather than a rule it states in the abstract. If your private label arrangement has that shape, resolve it against your own contracts and import documentation, or take advice, rather than assuming either party's answer by default.

Run the free checker to work out your obligations once you know which side of a private label arrangement makes you the operator.