AIPIA (Active & Intelligent Packaging Industry Association) held its second Americas Summit in New Jersey, US, from June 2-3, where speakers including Digimarc, Talkin Things, Thin Film, EVRYTHNG and Zappar discussed real time applications as well as the latest active and intelligent packaging developments, research and trends.
Mondelēz Challenge
The event finále included the Mondelēz Challenge where participates got to pitch their technology to a team from the company including Lou Fenech, packaging platform leader, Mondelez; Carlo Businelli, principal packaging equipment engineer, Mondelez; Chuck Halgren, senior associate principal engineer, Mondelez; and Amy Gosselin, director, global G&C packaging, Mondelez, in the hope of working with the snacks giant in the future.
The winners were Ian Clough, director of growth, Blue Bite; Bill Carpenter, global account manager, Systech; and Linda Hadar, brand innovation manager, Americas, HP.
“When people hear about our company they think about a vision, inspection and quality inspection company and that’s true, we’ve been in the business for 32 years but we are introducing a new brand protection suite that leverages that 32 years of experience, primarily in the pharmaceutical industry that allows us to now introduce a platform to address other markets like food and beverage, healthcare and cosmetics and wine and spirits,” said Carpenter.
“We are transforming the technology we have built over the last 30 years into a new and novel technology that we believe will have widespread appeal to our client base.”
Historically, the only way to combat counterfeit and diversion risks in the supply chain was to uniquely identify and authenticate individual products or by adding additional covert or overt technologies to each product.
Systech’s UniSecure doesn’t require any additional technology, code or symbology on the consumer packaging and has been hailed a “game-changer,” by Foodmach.
Carpenter demonstrated UniSecure at AIPIA. The anti-counterfeiting and product authentication technology works with existing barcodes and packaging. With it, you don’t have to change anything about the way a brand is protected. The technology uses a simple smartphone app that facilitates product verification anytime, anywhere across the supply chain.
Foodmach
The unique pattern is stored on the cloud after the barcode is printed and can be used for later authentication, at any stage in the supply chain, using a mobile device app.
Systech announced this year it has already expanded into the food brand protection market with the technology announcing a partnership with Australian packaging company Foodmach.
The agreement means Foodmach – Australia’s largest food and beverage automation specialist and product traceability integrator – will act as preferred partner to market Systech’s UniSecure product in Australia and New Zealand.
According to Ara Ohanian, CEO, Systech, the two countries are “significant exporters across high-value categories, including food, dairy and wine, to Asia; where counterfeiting and product diversion are growing challenges to brand owners.
