Package Design - January/February 2013 - 16

Tracking

Authenticity
By Danielle Beurteaux

New technologies help package designers and brand
owners keep their products and reputations intact.

Y

ou go to great lengths to make your brands
and their products stand out. But what
happens when those brands and their products are
victims of counterfeiting or theft, and you need
something more?
As product counterfeiters and diverters become
ever more sophisticated, new track-and-trace technologies are being developed and integrated into
package designs to help safeguard brands’ reputations and bottom lines, and consumers’ safety. And
brand owners are using tracking technology to tap
into a valuable demographic—consumers who care
about the origins of the products they buy.

Farm to table
Developed in the 1990s for the automotive industry, Quick Response codes’ easy implementation
and use for brand owners and consumers have
made it a go-to tracking solution.
BioPet Vet Lab recently launched IntegriMeat,
a livestock tracking program aimed at the natural
foods market that enables farmers to track their
cows and consumers to track the meat they
purchase.
First, a DNA sample is taken from each animal.
The sample is sent to BioPet, which logs the info
into a database. If a “safety incident” occurs (think
E. coli outbreak), BioPet would be able to deter16

january/february 2013

mine the source of the tainted meat—all the way
back to where and when the cow was raised, transported and slaughtered.
Consumers can scan a Quick Response (QR)
code on the product packaging to access information about where and how a cow was raised. For
brand owners, this means potential access to the
valuable organics market.
“Studies show that consumers are willing to pay
something like 20% more for beef they know is
raised in a certain way.” says Meg Retinger, chief
administrative officer at BioPet.

QR codes’ easy implementation
and use for brand owners and
consumers have made it a
go-to tracking solution.
Red’s Best Seafood in Boston is also using QR
codes. Owner Jared Auberbach wanted to create a
system to streamline the supply chain, let fishermen know where their catch ends up, and let consumers, using a QR code on the packaging, in on
the entire process, from catch to table.
Package Design - January/February 2013

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