Smart Packaging: Food Safety Enhancement, Shelf-life Extension and Food Waste Reduction

You find enclosed my talk entitled: " Smart Packaging: Food Safety Enhancement, Shelf-life Extension and Food Waste Reduction " given at the SIAL Canada, April 30, 2013 in Toronto, Canada. 

Do not hesitate contact me (pak-bec@hotmail.com) if you wish a copy of the full presentation (55 slides)

 

Smart Packaging: Food Safety Enhancement, Shelf-life Extension and Food Waste Reduction from Islem Yezza

Scandale de la viande de Cheval : la traçabilité en question!

Je vous invite à lire mon article publié dans le dernier numéro de la revue l’Actualité Alimentaire: Scandale de la viande de Cheval : la traçabilité en question!

Le scandale de la viande de cheval,  en mettant en lumière une filière d’approvisionnement aux multiples intermédiaires, soulève de nouveau le problème de la traçabilité dans l’industrie agroalimentaire. Dans cette quête vers plus de transparence, l’industrie agro-alimentaire pourrait s’appuyer sur l’emballage comme support privilégié de la traçabilité.

Depuis le début de l’année, la découverte de viande de cheval dans de nombreux plats cuisinés estampillées "viande de bœuf" crée l’émoi dans la filière bovine et chez les consommateurs européens. S’il n’y a certes pas de danger sanitaire, le "Horsegate" est néanmoins le révélateur de l’opacité qui entoure la production des plats cuisinés. Dans la filière viande, comme dans beaucoup d’autres filières alimentaires, l’approvisionnement s'est articulé autour d’une chaîne très complexe, alliant marchés internationaux de matière première alimentaire et une cascade d’intermédiaires. À chaque étape, il peut y avoir des défaillances. L’enquête doit encore déterminer à quel niveau il y a eu tromperie sur la marchandise.

Le scandale de la viande de cheval dans les produits cuisinés révèle les failles d'un système agroalimentaire mondialisé devenu complexe et dominé par des logiques financières. Mais en entraînant des risques de rappels massifs ou de réputation et  de mauvaise image de marque, ce genre de  dérapages  pourrait coûter bien cher aux industries agroalimentaires. Dans ce contexte, l’emballage, à l’instar des étiquettes intelligentes, peut offrir des pistes de solutions qui méritent d’être explorées. 

Lire la suite…

Nb: N'hésitez pas à me contacter (pak-bec@hotmail.com) si vous voulez consulter l'intégrale de cet article.

La traçabilité par RFID au service de la sécurité alimentaire

La traçabilité par RFID (identification par radiofréquence), est entre autres utile pour connaître la provenance de certains produits. À l'heure des incidents nucléaires au Japon, une telle technologie pourrait être précieuse au niveau de la sécurité alimentaire.

« Dans l'industrie de la viande, la traçabilité par RFID permet par exemple d'identifier un animal de sa naissance à sa transformation. Le Japon a des exigences très élevées lorsque vient le temps d'importer de la viande. Les autorités veulent notamment savoir la date de naissance des animaux et à quel âge la viande a été transformée. La technologie peut donc permettre donc aux éleveurs canadiens de gagner des marchés d'exportation », explique Grégory Pétrieux, vice-président, ventes chez Epsilia, une entreprise de Trois-Rivières qui développe des solutions de traçabilité.

M. Pétrieux a été rencontré à l'occasion du Colloque sur les TI, événement organisé par la section Mauricie-Centre-du-Québec du Réseau Action TI et qui a eu lieu le 23 mars à l'Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières (UQTR).

Des éléments radioactifs ont été détectés dans certains légumes et produits laitiers provenant de zones proches de centrales nucléaires nippones endommagées par les tremblements de terre et les tsunamis qui ont suivi en mars dernier. « La traçabilité permet donc de retirer des comptoirs tous les produits originaires de ces zones et de déterminer avec quels éléments ils ont été en contact », dit-il.

La traçabilité peut également permettre de réduire l'ampleur d'un rappel et de retirer uniquement les produits à risque. « L'industrie québécoise du fromage aurait pu grandement profiter de la traçabilité lors de la découverte de produits contaminés à la listéria en 2008. Plutôt que de retirer du marché tous les fromages québécois au lait crû, il aurait été possible de limiter le rappel aux seuls produits contaminés », illustre-t-il.

Contrat pour la traçabilité des produits de l'érable

Le 12 avril, Epsilia a officialisé l'obtention d'un mandat auprès de la Fédération des producteurs acéricoles du Québec (FPAQ) pour réaliser un projet pilote visant l'identification et la traçabilité des barils de sirop d'érable.

La FPAQ a reçu un investissement pouvant aller jusqu'à 110 260 dollars pour identifier ses barils et en gérer les mouvements.

« La Fédération voulait utiliser une technologie pour faire la traçabilité des produits acéricoles du producteur jusqu'au transformateur. Si les transformateurs continuent d'utiliser la traçabilité jusqu'aux produits finis et, ultimement, à la vente aux consommateurs, ce serait une première au Québec, voire au Canada », explique-t-il.
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Grégory Pétrieux ajoute que le principal défi dans ce cas a été de trouver une puce RFID pouvant résister aux rigueurs de l'hiver québécois, mais également aux chaleurs de l'été, puisqu'il arrive que les barils de sirop d'érable soient entreposés à l'extérieur.

En plus de l'environnement extérieur, Epsilia se devait de considérer toutes les opérations et manipulations des barils, dont les processus de remplissage, de vidage et surtout de nettoyage des barils est effectué à la vapeur.

La FPAQ souligne que le projet servira également à améliorer le suivi de la vente des quelque 160 000 à 225 000 barils de sirop d'érable en vrac commercialisés chaque année au Québec.

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Intelligent Packaging: OnVu ICE Label Facilitates Cold Chain Monitoring

Germany-based BASF Future Business GmbH, a 100 percent subsidiary of BASF SE, has developed the OnVu ICE label that facilitates cold chain monitoring that informs retailers and consumers if a frozen food is still safe to eat.

The creation of the new label technology was borne of the simple realization that a consumer or retailer can’t simply look at frozen food and determine if it is safe to eat.

“Manufacturers, retailers and consumers will soon be able to tell at a glance whether ice cream, pizza, fish or any other products were kept constantly deep-frozen or should rather be discarded because the cold chain was interrupted significantly,” explains Martin Angehrn, project manager, BASF Future Business GmbH. “And they’ll know this more reliably than by looking at the best before date.”

The OnVu ICE time temperature indicator from BASF has recently been launched, specifically targeting manufacturers of frozen products.

Temperature Memory

OnVu time temperature indicators are smart labels placed upon food packaging to monitor the cold chain for chilled and deep-frozen food, making the current state of the product visible–the label changes color depending on temperature. The darker its color, the better the cold chain has been maintained.

“OnVu labels, which sort of memorize temperature, help to keep chilled and frozen products fresh,” says Angehrn.

Applied to the packaging OnVu monitors the food on its way from the manufacturer to the retailer. In addition, the label is a useful marketing tool allowing retailers to help customers at home to maintain their own cold chain for chilled and frozen foods.

Simple Symbol

OnVu is actually cost-effective and easy to use: a temperature-sensitive ink is used to print a thermometer symbol on the product label or even, in the packaging line, directly onto the packaging.

The indicator at the center of the thermometer is activated for use by means of UV (Ultraviolet) light, which causes it to turn a dark blue color. From this moment on, the indicator monitors the cold chain.

Acting as a reference, the outer portion of the thermometer is a lighter shade of blue. The cold chain monitor works simply: as long as the center is darker than or the same as the reference color, then there has not been any significant interruption in the cold chain, and the best before date shown on the packaging remains valid.

As time goes by and/or if the cold chain is broken, the color pales. The speed of the color change process and the temperatures that trigger it can be customized individually.

On frozen foods, OnVu stays a dark blue color as long as the temperature is kept continually below minus 18 degrees Celsius. The higher the temperature rises, the faster the color changes. This is suitable for foods that keep for a long time when frozen to –18 degrees.

“When the temperature rises to cause thawing, these foods should be consumed immediately,” Angehrn explains.

 

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Wal-Mart RFID tags: between economical benefits and privacy concerns

After sustainability, Wal-Mart addresses traceability by adopting RFID tags.

Starting next month, the retailer will place removable "smart tags" on individual garments that can be read by a hand-held scanner. Wal-Mart workers will be able to quickly learn, for instance, which size of Wrangler jeans is missing, with the aim of ensuring shelves are optimally stocked and inventory tightly watched. If successful, the radio-frequency ID tags will be rolled out on other products at Wal-Mart's more than 3,750 U.S. stores.

Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) offers a number of potential benefits: traceability, inventory management, labour saving costs, security and promotion of quality and safety. However this technology raises privacy concerns.

Wal-Mart is demanding that suppliers add the tags to removable labels or packaging instead of embedding them in clothes, to minimize fears that they could be used to track people's movements. It also is posting signs informing customers about the tags.

I share with you the prescient story published in Page One of the Wall Street Journal and the Opinion of Philip Yam, chief news editor of Scientific American.
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Printed Intelligence: Sensor, RFID, e-paper and Photovoltaic

Cheap, sensitive sensors could detect explosives, toxins in water

A sensitive new Stanford-developed disposable chip detects low concentrations of the explosive trinitrotoluene (TNT) and a close chemical cousin of the dreaded toxic nerve agent sarin in water samples. The research appears online this week in the journal ACS Nano.

A nanotube is a rolled-up sheet of carbon atoms that is only one atom thick. Every atom is therefore on the tube's surface. This makes single-walled nanotubes very sensitive to nearby molecules that would drift by in a water sample.

The chip itself is made of an inexpensive, flexible plastic substrate, rather than the more expensive, rigid silicon that underlies most computer chips. The researchers also use a thin polymer gate electrical insulator layer, which allows the device to operate on less than 1 volt of electricity.

Polymer memory products manufactured in roll-to-roll printing process

PolyIC and Thin Film Electronics ASA have jointly manufactured fully functional re-writable polymer memory products in a high-volume roll-to-roll printing process.

The high yield printing process gives leading production performance, and the resulting memory product meets low voltage requirements for consumer products, such as in the toys and games industry.

"PolyIC has developed and built up a roll-to-roll production process for printed electronics, and has successfully demonstrated its first printed RFID tags. Thinfilm's memory technology is complementary to our own technology, and by using our process and production technology, we have been able to successfully manufacture stand-alone Thinfilm memory products that satisfy our current customer requirements," commented Wolfgang Mildner, Managing Director at PolyIC.
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E-paper display market reaches $1.17 billion in 2014

IDTechEx find that the total market size for e-paper displays in 2010 is $131 million rising to $1.17 billion in 2014. This is the value of the display component, not the product. To date, e-paper display technologies have been used in more than $1 billion worth of products. Much of the growth is driven by e-readers following the huge success of Amazon's Kindle. However, much more is to come. IDTechEx find that in 2020 the market value will reach $7.45 billion thanks to the availability of flexible, color displays and faster refresh rates.

Tata group invests in a start-up producing photovoltaic solar modules

Tata group has invested in Flisom (Flexible and lightweight solar modules), a Switzerland-based company, to mark its interest in the solar photovoltaic industry and focus on developing the next generation of clean energy as a future growth area.

The plant will use superior technology and develop high quality flexible solar cells which in turn will produce electricity at ultra-low cost. These high performance and low-cost solar cells will create a significant impact on clean and sustainable solar electricity generation.

The global market for PV has grown at about 30% annually for over 10 years. The cumulative solar energy production still accounts for less than 0.1% of the global energy demand. PV growth is set to accelerate in the coming years as it becomes cost-competitive with the retail price of electricity in many parts of the world.

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Smart Packaging : printed electronics

Smart packaging – fiction or reality

'Smart packaging', which provides additional information to consumers in different languages, can read out instruction leaflets to visually-handicapped people, or play an advertising spot on printed foil monitors. Already the road to achieving this kind of electronic wizardry is mapped out. The key is intelligent ink. The strip conductors and components are made of organic polymers which are dissolved in a liquid phase, making them processible on a kind of inkjet printer.

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The declared aim of the developers here is to be able to offer such a chip for use in the mass segments of the beverages industry, at a price of under one cent. Within just a few years this should be a reality. These printed RFID labels will then be able to monitor temperature accurately all the time and store and transfer data. And it´s not only this kind of passive data storage that is at the threshold of large-scale industrial manufacture, so, too, are active electronic circuits made up of transistors, resistors, LEDs and capacitors also manufactured with inkjet printers. One idea is even to supply energy from printed batteries or solar cells. That is the key to animated images or advertising jingles.

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Printed electronics is opening up fascinating new potential: According to a report by market researchers NanoMarket, the market volume in electronic inks and substrates used in the manufacture of printed electronics, will rise from 1.1 billion dollars in 2008 to over 11.5 billion by 2015. And if visions can be valued in money, this shows one thing quite clearly: the smart future is already well under way.

Smart RFID sensors promise cheaper food and less waste

Lower food prices and less waste thanks to low-cost, smart sensors using Radio Frequency ID (RFID) technology could result from pioneering work at the University of Manchester, UK.

Scientists and engineers at The Syngenta Sensors University Innovation Centre (SSUIC) are developing technology that will allow more scientific ‘best before’ dates to be set by food producers and retailers.

Smart sensors integrated with Oyster-card type RFID technology are being used to track real-time stresses suffered by perishable goods from farm gate to retailer’s shelf.

Chemists, engineers and physicists have teamed up at the Innovation Centre to develop a system that uses battery-free RFID tags to monitor and record stress. The tags, costing about 10p to 20p compared with £20 for the current version, could lead to the wide scale deployment of the technology within three years.

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Printed intelligence: e-packaging and growth opportunities

Novel Applications for Print Technologies Provide High Growth Opportunities

Printed RFID, OLED displays and printed photovoltaics offer the greatest long-term opportunity for print equipment manufacturers, raw material suppliers and printers, according to a new study by Pira International.

The study finds that photovoltaics will offer potential for web-fed print experts to coat, print and finish large volumes to very high specifications. Huge volumes of low-cost, reasonably efficient solar panels will be widely used. Printers could be contract manufacturers in emerging countries with no power utility grid. There will be tremendous opportunities to develop and market the fluids and inks.

The study concludes that the pace of technological change will make the market very different from today, with print products commonly incorporating electronics or biomedical functions along with text and images. Print will be much broader than now, there will be major opportunities for printers and suppliers of printing equipment and consumables, but not in the usual places.

Brand enhancement by electronics in packaging

Electronic packaging, "e-packaging" addresses the need for brands to reconnect with the customer or face oblivion from copying. That even applies to retailer own brands.

IDTechEx has published Brand Enhancement by Electronics in Packaging 2010-2020. This report concerns the market for electronic smart packaging devices, increasingly known as "e-packaging". Global demand for these devices will grow rapidly from a mere $0.09 billion in 2010 to $7.7 billion in 2020. Most of this will involve consumer packaged goods (CPG) and particularly their brand enhancement.

At that time, only around 1% of the global expenditure on packaging will involve e-packaging devices but growth in applications and usage will rocket thereafter and, in the meantime, the prospect of a multibillion market in only a few years is quite enough to attract considerable investment by putative suppliers.

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Anti-Counterfeit Packaging: Market, Holography and Colour-Code Particles

Global Anti Counterfeit Packaging Market Food and Pharmaceuticals (2009-2014)

The global anti counterfeit packaging market is expected to be worth US$79.3 billion by 2014, growing at an estimated CAGR of 8.6% from 2009 to 2014. Bar code forms the largest market segment; and is expected to reach US$26 billion by 2014. However, as the bar code market is attaining maturity it is growing at a very low CAGR of 0.4% for the same period. RFID market has the highest growth potential and is expected to grow with a CAGR of 20.2% for the same period.

North America is the largest segment in the anti counterfeit market and is expected to reach US$49 billion by 2014, accounting for nearly 62% of the revenues growing at a CAGR of 6.8%. Asia is the second largest market and is expected to reach US$14 billion by 2014 with a highest CAGR of 19.7% .

A Genetic Fingerprint in Colour-Code

Like a genetic fingerprint, SecuPack, developed by 3S Simons Security Systems GmbH, can be added to primary and secondary packaging as a legally binding counterfeit protection. Folded cardboard boxes, tubes and blister packaging of different materials secured with SecuPack enable on the spot authentication. Additionally, customary product security systems like seals, labels, holograms and closures can be optimised with the 3S technology.

The SecuPack 3S technology is based on the smallest micro colour-code particles, called SecuTag. SecuTags are made of melamine alkyd polymers, manufactured in different sizes ranging from 8 to 90 micrometers (μm). With the so-called sandwich method, the different colour components are layered on top of each other. The selection of the colours and their sequence make up over 4.35 billion individual company codes. If two or more colour-codes are combined, the number of possible codes is practically infinite. The layers are prepared with normal, ultraviolet or infrared colours and can optionally be provided with magnetic properties. The colour-codes are heat resistant up to 200ºC (392ºF) over a long period of time and up to 350ºC (662ºF) for a short time span. The particles also are resistant to organic solvents and chemicals, such as acids, bases and diluters.

Holographic Packaging The 6th "p" Of Marketing Mix ?

Inherent use of holography against counterfeit helps to build in levels of security and authentication – In reality, all products are subject to counterfeiting. Counterfeiting and tampering can undermine consumers trust in the quality and safety of a branded product, leading to a loss in market share.

Due to the inherent nature of the hologram, it prevents tampering and counterfeiting. Hence proper holographic packaging on consumer goods serves an important way for brand protection and also protection of the brand’s integrity. For e.g. In 1989, Glaxo welcome (then Glaxo) discovered that its ulcer-treatment drug Zantac distributed in the United Kingdom was being counterfeited. The dupe’s packaging was so good, said a Glaxo representative, that it literally took a magnifying glass to prove that it was counterfeit. To prevent this from happening again, Glaxo started using a holographic tamper-evident closure seal for packages sent to the UK and told users that the appearance of a hologram denotes authenticity.

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Active RFID: European fruit supply chain benefits from Cool Chain Monitor

Dutch active RFID provider Ambient Systems and Information Highway Group (IHG), the Spanish RFID system integrator, have conducted a successful project with Bionest, the largest Spanish organic strawberry producer, and with one of Germany’s largest retailers. The use of Ambient’s third generation active RFID allowed Bionest to monitor the condition of strawberry transport from start to finish. The pilot used intelligent tags with a shelf-life algorithm, providing details of the quality of the strawberries per pallet. The integrated solution from Ambient and IHG created a ‘Cool Chain Monitor’ that offered immediate insights to substantially reduce waste and increase profit for all parties involved.

Up to 50% of food products are wasted in the food supply chain, according to a recent report from Dutch Minister of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality, Mrs. Gerda Verburg . Strawberries and other ‘soft fruits’ that are highly sensitive to temperature conditions rank among the product categories with the highest loss in the supply chain. With better visibility on temperature conditions during transport and by applying a unique shelf-life algorithm, this loss can be reduced significantly. This was proven in the recent project by Ambient Systems and IHG to implement an integrated Cool Chain Monitor for Bionest and one of German’s leading retailers.

At the start of the transport in Spain, Ambient's SmartPoints (intelligent active RFID tags) were placed in the strawberry pallets. During transport they measured the temperature every 15 minutes. Upon arrival at the German distribution centre the temperature conditions and remaining shelf life of each pallet were communicated wirelessly through Ambient’s wireless network with GPRS connection. A web-based application from IHG made transport conditions and food quality immediately available after arrival to both Bionest and the retailer.

Thanks to the use of intelligent tags with integrated shelf-life algorithm, developed by Ambient Systems in cooperation with the University of Bremen, the usability of active RFID has been extended. By applying this algorithm to the temperature history of each pallet, end users can select the ripest fruit for immediate sale. This provides a feasible solution for ‘First Expire – First Out’ operations. Eelco de Jong, Director of Marketing and Business Development at Ambient Systems: “It is great to be able to contribute to a reduction in the loss of wasted food. The Cool Chain Monitor increases profits for food producers as well as retailers, and addresses the objectives for a more sustainable food supply chain. Our hard work in developing innovative active RFID solutions for the cool chain is paying off in more ways than one.”

Read more...

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RFID: track the health and productivity of pigs

Israel's largest pig farm is using UHF EPC Gen 2 tags to increase production, ensuring that each animal receives proper care, and improving the health of sows and their piglets.

An Israeli firm specializing in pork products is employing an RFID system at its pig farm in Galilee to track the health and productivity of its sows as they produce piglets. For the past three months, the meat producer—which asked to remain unnamed—has been using the BOSwine system, provided by Israeli RFID solutions provider Better Online Solutions (BOS), to track the amount of feed the pigs eat, as well as their weight, pregnancies and the number of piglets they produce. The system, says Oren Lazimi, the farm's operating manager, is expected to increase litter size and frequency, while also reducing the piglets' mortality rate.

Read more…

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Apple et son emballage intelligent

Apple s’intéresse au packaging de ses produits. Celui-ci a toujours fait l’objet d’un soin presque maniaque, mais Cupertino veut aller encore plus loin en permettant à un client intéressé par tel produit de le « tester » via un « active packaging ». L’idée est simple : pour fonctionner, un appareil doit être alimenté en énergie, ainsi que par des données. Le brevet protège un procédé permettant de recharger un produit (un iPod, mettons) à travers son boîtier de protection, tandis qu’une interface de réseau sans-fil, intégré à l’emballage, permettrait de distribuer du contenu comme de la pub, une vidéo, voire des mises à jour ou des applications.
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Seraient donc imprimés dans le packaging d’un iPod des circuits imprimés offrant une interface électrique, ainsi que tout le nécessaire pour recevoir et envoyer des données. Voilà un concept intéressant qui fera le bonheur des distributeurs… On hésitera désormais à jeter un emballage aussi rempli de technologies !

Source

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Video details American Apparel's RFID

New Avery Dennison Video demonstrates how Item-Level RFID at American Apparel helped achieve 99% Inventory Accuracy and a 14% Sales Increase

Read more: American Apparel® RFID Case Study

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Report on Active & Intelligent Packaging, 2009

IDTechEx was recently asked to give the keynote presentation at the Active & Intelligent Packaging conference, held at the Campden BRI food and packaging research facility in Chipping Campden, England. Some of the presentations were related to Printed Electronics; others were about other innovative chemical propositions - some of these may be printed at some time in the future. The event was attended by several major players in the consumer products industry, such as Unilever, Procter & Gamble, Premium Foods, Barilla, and Pernod Ricard. Below are the highlights of the event.

Read more

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Les puces espionnes dans le collimateur de l'Union européenne

La Commission européenne proposera mardi de protéger les consommateurs contre les étiquettes électroniques dites "RFID", de plus en plus fréquentes sur les biens de consommation et parfois assimilées à des puces espionnes.

Protéger les consommateurs des puces espionnes est devenu un des objectifs de la Commission européenne qui publie ce mardi des recommandations contre les étiquettes électroniques dites "RFID".

Ces puces, qui peuvent être lues à distance et pourraient remplacer les codes-barres, apparaissent un peu partout : dans les péages de transport, les cartes de métro, les conteneurs de transport pour les pister le long de la chaîne d'expédition, les billets de spectacle pour les sécuriser... voire sous la peau de clients de discothèques qui se passent ainsi de cartes d'identité et de paiement. Ces puces pourraient permettre un jour au réfrigérateur de détecter qu'il n'y a plus de lait ou qu'il est périmé, et d'en commander directement au supermarché via internet.

Mais certains y voient aussi des puces espionnes dans la mesure où les données qu'elles contiennent peuvent être lues à l'insu de leur propriétaire. Et révéler ses habitudes de consommation, ses déplacements, voire des renseignements personnels, adresse ou date de naissance. "Aucun Européen ne devrait porter une puce dans l'un de ses biens sans savoir précisément à quoi elle sert, avec la possibilité de la retirer ou de l'éteindre à n'importe quel moment", avait souligné récemment la commissaire européenne chargée des nouvelles technologies, Viviane Reding.

Les recommandations publiées mardi par la Commission visent à permettre aux consommateurs de contrôler les puces présentes sur les objets qu'ils achètent. Bruxelles estime ainsi qu'elles devraient être automatiquement désactivées en magasin, sauf si le consommateur demande expressément à ce qu'elles restent actives. Selon des données de la Commission, 2,2 milliards d'étiquettes RFID ont été vendues dans le monde en 2008, dont un tiers en Europe.

Source

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RFID News: Economy and Sustainability

How green is RFID?

In these days of environmental consciousness, what are RFID's green credentials? Is RFID a net positive or negative contributor to the campaign to help the planet?

Notwithstanding the list of possible negative effects above, when you look at the work being done by RFID solutions to help the environment, IDTechEx believes the balance is strongly in favour. Yes, RFID tags can be eco-unfriendy in some limited circumstances, but technology is helping to build a greener world, by:

• Reducing vehicle emissions
• Monitoring the health of wildlife
• Protecting indigenous fauna
• Encouraging container reuse
• Conserving energy use in buildings
• Improving waste disposal
• Encouraging recycling
• Protecting the sea floor

Importantly, most examples also have an economic benefit, which will encourage further deployment.

HIDE-Pack: An Innovative and Sustainable Approach to RFID-Enabled Packaging

It consists in embedding an RFID inlay within the structure of a package, so that the inlay is not visible from the inside or the outside of the package. Effectively, the RFID inlay becomes an integral part of the packaging medium. The HIDE-Pack process results in significant capital and labor saving for all users of packaging from consumer goods to perishable commodities.

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RFID News: Market and printed intelligence

RFID Market Forecasts 2009-2019

In 2009 IDTechEx find that the value of the entire RFID market will be $5.56 billion, up from $5.25 billion in 2008. This includes tags, readers and software/services for RFID cards, labels, fobs and all other form factors. The majority of this spend is on RFID cards and their associated services - totalling $2.99 billion. The market for RFID is growing and a large amount of this value is due to government-led RFID schemes, such as those for transportation, national ID (contactless cards and passports), military and animal tagging.

RFID tags from UPM Raflatac connect a French magazine to the internet

The French publication Amusement is bridging the divide between traditional print and online magazines. Each 700 g copy of the magazine focusing on new technology and lifestyle is equipped with a UPM Raflatac RFID tag - providing readers with a link to exclusive content online.

The latest issue of Amusement is the result of a joint effort between French high-tech company Violet and GS1 France. NFC tags (size 15x15 mm) from UPM Raflatac are fixed in the middle of the first double page of Amusement's fourth issue. The NFC tag is designed to work with Violet's new 'Mir:ror' RFID interrogator, which plugs into a computer's USB port. When the magazine's RFID-tagged page is brought near the interrogator, the tag's unique ID number is scanned and exclusive online content launched.

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The future of printed electronics

The key to mass production of plastic electronic devices lies in the advances made in processing technologies such as printing, vacuum deposition and roll-to-roll processing.

The industry is making inroads into the development of processing techniques to manufacture devices such as organic light emitting diodes (OLEDs), flexible RFID tags, photovoltaics and so on.

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In order to achieve widespread adoption though, it is critical that the challenges involved in roll-to-roll processing or production of plastic electronic devices by the kilometre be addressed. Factors such as yield and resolution become important in the ability to drive down costs, which ultimately convinces end users into adoption.

Printed electronics have advantages in several applications over conventional electronics, mainly due to the processing techniques employed. The prospect of embedding sensors, displays and RFID tags in packaging, for instance, is attractive because the techniques used to fabricate these devices are compliant with packaging processes.

Read more…

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Mondi Corrugated Packaging: "intelligent box"

Après la boîte intelligente Hide-Pack d’emballage Krupack, Mondi, le plus important fournisseur d’emballage en carton ondulé, flexible et de sacs en papiers au Royaume-Uni propose son "Intelligent Box".

Mondi Corrugated Packaging has developed a process to add RFID labels to corrugated boxes to enable effective scanning, tracking and reception of packs.

The firm said its "intelligent box" would reduce the need for a labour-intensive tag application process by using a high-speed manufacturing system to add RFID labels in large volumes.

The use of RFID, rather than traditional barcodes, would enable companies to scan entire pallets for quicker redistribution of products.

"The intelligent boxes will provide round-the-clock access to live information about product availability and location. This will make stocktaking and warehouse management quicker and more accurate," added Robinson.
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Ecopac : un emballage écologiquement responsable

Agriplas, filiale du groupe Roullier, concepteur et fabriquant de flacons et bidons de 30ml à 220L, a développé un emballage écologiquement responsable : Ecopac. Destiné à un usage "navette" il est composé d’une caisse protectrice réutilisable parée d’une puce RFID (Radio Frequency IDentification) et d’une poche échangeable à chaque utilisation (ou éco-recharge) garantissant ainsi sécurité et hygiène.

Les plus écologiques :

• Réutilisable en toute sécurité
• Recyclable facilement
• Réducteur de déchets
• Respecte et protège l’environnement

Les plus économiques :

• Optimisation des achats d’emballages
• Optimisation de la logistique
• Optimisation des coûts de destruction
• Retour sur investissements inférieur à 1 an