Counterfeit products present a risk to brand value and consumer safety. Mark Holmes finds out how taggant technologies are improving supply chain security and traceability
The need for anti-counterfeiting features in plastic compounds continues to grow. Anti-counterfeiting additives have a clear benefit in providing protection and authentication for high value products and OEM brands across many market sectors. Beyond that, the technologies also provide the option to add traceability features to plastic materials to guarantee their provenance in terms of recycled content and broader circular economy compliance. “The threats to consumers and international trade from counterfeiting and diversion of plastics are well documented,” says Barry McDonogh, Senior Vice-President of Sales and Business Development at TruTag Technologies. “The illegitimate production and unauthorised distribution of products continues to threaten consumer safety and result in significant commercial losses. While efforts have been made to counter these threats through secure packaging, more can be done to reduce supply-chain risk and protect consumers by integrating authentication and traceability solutions directly into plastics,” he says. “In addition to counterfeiting, the requirement for traceability of plastics is increasingly being driven by the need to ensure the provenance of materials utilised in the economy,” McDonogh adds. “Taggants have long-provided plastic manufacturers and brands with a secure means of product authentication and traceability. These solutions work by emitting a distinct chemical or spectral signature. Taggants can be incorporated into a masterbatch and extruded into films or applied directly to plastics,” he says. However, McDonogh says traditional taggant solutions are limited by the need to use a proprietary imager for verification. This means only those with those imagers can detect the taggants, and this significantly reduces the potential for authenti-cation and engagement in the supply chain. “New digital taggants have been developed that address this limitation. These digital taggants can be detected by common cell phones. This means that anyone in the supply chain can interact with products through their smartphones,” he says.This digitisation offers not only a potential to secure the supply chain but for consumer engagement too, according to McDonogh. Consumers and brands can have immediate visibility of suspect events as they occur in the supply chain. This will enable customers to react in real-time to events that have the potential to impact consumer safety and have significant brand impacts. This can benefit all consumer products, specifically those impacting consumer safety. In addition to the security benefits, digitisation offers the potential for consumer engagement with end products – allowing brands to communicate and sell directly to consumers. This is particularly of importance for medium- to high-value products. A further benefit is validating the circular economy. Many brands are investing heavily in the use of recycled materials for environmental reasons, says McDonogh. Digitisation provides a means by which the provenance of plastic material can be validated, particularly for high volume recycled plastics. The technology can also assist in warranty situations, for example, with products utilised in industrial applications such as gaskets, where failure can result in significant claims.
The latest developments by TruTag Technologiesinclude a series of products for plastic films such as PE, PVC, and PTFE, as well as shrink wraps for pharmaceutical and beverage packaging which combine physical security with digital authentication. “For all technologies in this space, offerings are judged on the basis of a number of criteria,” says McDonogh. “All solutions should have a base level of security that is sufficient to deter counterfeiters from targeting a specific product. Beyond that, customers are looking for low cost, ease of implementation and a something that can be authenticated on mass.”
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Hassan Saeidi
Ehda Polymer