Active Packaging

In department outlets, hundreds of items are sold to customers every day. When the required amounts of goods demanded by customers are not on the shelves, the current stock position is checked by the sales reps, although there are circumstances such as not being able to identify the stock amount on time, even if the product exists in the system. The fact that the stock scheme does not work correctly has a detrimental effect on the profits of many brands. We are recently getting used to RFID technology in the retail industry that a smart packaging solution to brings an end to these risks and uncertainties.

With RFID, a technology that helps you to track the product from the moment it is made to the moment it is sold, goods with an identification tag which is utilizing RFID sensors meet the consumer more easily.

Specific details of a product can be reached immediately on which aisle or even on which shelf each commodity in the shop is placed with the portable handheld terminals that can be carried by mobile sales consultants. Customer requests can then be addressed automatically, missed items can be monitored regularly, and new ones can be substituted.

Smart Shelves with Item Level Tagging Feature

For Item-Level-Tagging (ILT) business applications, UHF Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology is gaining growing interest. Significantly better service can be provided by RFID technology in several sectors to eliminate or mitigate human error.  In the retail sector, real-time inventory focused on RFID Smart Shelves enables current consumer demand for goods to be tracked, through timely replenishing orders to escape an out-of-stock condition, and through increasing revenue through added facilities.

Passive RFID System for Shelf Monitoring

Item positioning can also be useful to an automated real-time store, and the UHF-RFID passive technology actually offers a low-cost radio localization.

In practical means, it enables additional capabilities to be created, such as preventing misplaced goods in the pharmacy industry (e.g., missing or disrupting sales due to medications in the wrong desk drawer) or in the retail industry (e.g., items left by consumers on the wrong shelf, things banned or lost in the fitting room).

Active RFID System for Shelf Monitoring

On the other side, the Active Shelf system is used for detecting and locating items in situations such as stores, pharmacies, libraries or factories, and warehouses, or any form of the area requiring the positioning of objects on shelves or racks. In particular, a single reader is used to monitor a vast number of antennas that radiate at various instants of time. They are organized in the racks to partition the inventory area into resolution cells.

What are the promises of RFID sensors for the retail industry?

• By modifying the procedures in the industries related to these applications, RFID makes firms more competitive.
• Because of its familiarity with numerous ERP systems used in the textile industry, this methodology provides a simple and quick procurement process.
• Through placing the RFID sensors in processes in the supply chain, several concerns completely unique to the textile and retail industry can be addressed.
• The basic physics of the space component is constrained by requirements in retail stores and space must be used efficiently. RFID offers detailed commodity recognition and reliable stock control at this level.

Until now, customized printing, the use of digital printing formats, and the use of transparent and flexible packaging materials have become the packaging trends. We may claim, though, that these were more inventions that fed the user experience and processes of marketing. With Industry 4.0, however, several innovations are now used actively in manufacturing lines. Technologies such as smart packaging augmented reality technologies, and the transition to cloud systems, help you create a relationship with customers while reducing costs. For instance, you can communicate the journey of a product from the factory to the store about where it is made, how it is made, the cleaning and sanitizing conditions by embedding an RFID tag in your packaging systems. Furthermore, the factors that protect against counterfeiting are at the center of smart packaging companies. In food packaging, RFID tag systems, which have been used for decades in the pharmaceutical industry, are now being popular.

According to a survey conducted by Deloitte Insights (namely the “capturing value from the smart packaging revolution”), more than 400 industry leaders participated in the research stated that smart packaging and connected packaging are now on the agenda of top management and draw major investment throughout the supply chain as corporations strive to take advantage of the possibilities. The findings of the survey showed that connected packaging technologies appear to fall into three large categories: stock and life cycle planning, product quality matters, and customer experience, and that the first two currently draw the largest share of investments.

Industries are currently perceiving the way of packaging as a means to improve the way they deliver, distribute, and use goods as a potential holistic approach. Integrated smart packaging applications, especially of the connected kind, are embraced by leading companies throughout firms that manufacture and optimize data to make intelligent business decisions and satisfy the customer needs.

What are the challenges for smart packaging?

Profit

Rather than only investing in their technology, it is about the challenge of how to make money out of it. Companies must first be able to recognize their distinctive, differentiated approach to the smart packaging platform to be able to profit in smart packaging. This contribution gives them a greater claim of reaching the smart solution’s strategic benefits. Companies should also build an income model that allows them a share of the value that is newly generated. Leaving the conventional cost-per-pound calculation behind and experimenting with several new pricing strategies is critical.

Data Privacy

Smart packaging technologies that do not gather end-consumer information, for example, only using supply chain efficiency-focused track-and-trace data should face fewer privacy barriers, and companies should be able to handle privacy issues primarily by clear legal agreements with their business-to-business partnerships. Smart technologies that collect customer information can have more problems with regulations in force.

Also, ownership of data is another dimension. For traditional customer and provider relations, generally the provider, the brand holds the ownership of data in their relationship. But currently, packaging companies that develop smart packaging solutions can claim a right to being included in the ownership of data.

Technology Barrier

Centralized standards for IoT technologies have not arrived yet. Multiple IoT specification fields, such as networking, identification, transportation, and data protocols, each have multiple specifications. The key problem is the absence of a common standard on which implementations can be developed by all stakeholders, which usually restricts the IoT from expanding quickly and also smart packaging.

“Smart packaging” or “Smart Food Contact Substances and Materials” are described as substances and materials that track packaged food conditions and the atmosphere in which they are packaged. It is structured to transmit knowledge on the quality and status of the food to the customer. Basically, there are two kinds of packaging, in short, which illustrate the external conditions and evaluate the quality of the food directly. Smart packaging tools are tags or labels that are applied or printed on the packaging material on the inner or outer package. Not only practically, but also in the volume of data it can carry, the form of how it collects and distributes the data varies from each other. It is easy to use several smart appliances together on the packaging.

With the continuous expansion of the global populace, food loss and pollution has become a major concern and has drawn considerable interest. 1.3 billion tons of food items are lost or discarded worldwide, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), and these losses or wastes can occur at any point in the supply chain from field to table. Food loss and waste can affect global sustainability, ecological and human health, and natural supplies. This is another significant factor for looking at smart packaging technologies to reduce degradation, both at the consumer and industrial levels.

Innovations have a persuasive desire to actually guarantee food sustainability. In addition to complementing traditional packaging features, advanced technological developments in Smart Packaging systems are evolving and have recently been embraced by the pharmaceutical and food industries as a method or solution to prolong the lifespan of food items, rendering it easier for the manufacturing phase, mitigating food contamination and waste, eliminating additives, and most notably offering quality and customer satisfaction. Current benefits of using Smart Packaging can be summarized as:

• Maintain quality by eliminating spoilage effectively (shelf-life)
• Develop the qualities of the product (e.g. appearance, taste, flavor, fragrance, etc)
• Responsive reaction to changes to the commodity or package climate
• Observe product records, product history, or status to the consumer
• Ensuring the seal quality thanks to smart devices and authentication
• Ensure the validity of goods and respond to counterfeit.

Technical elements, including temperature control systems, may be applied to avoid rapid decay and infection by bacteria.  Intelligent packaging that helps to share reliable knowledge about the state of a commodity and the credibility of packaging in the food supply chain is another new technical approach. In reality, advanced packaging techniques can also help to increase the shelf life of specific food items, especially with regard to sensors, nose systems, indicators, and RFID as key technologies within smart packaging systems. Another essential feature of linked packaging is to increase the traceability of goods in regular operations. In general, traceability enables the capacity to provide reliable data at any time and stage within the supply chain regarding the geolocation of the commodity, as well as shipment, delivery, and during their stay in a retail store, etc.

Such technologies, focused on the introduction of state-of-the-art technology, will provide reliable product data, and thereby deter fraud, ensure brand safety and security, as well as mitigate food loss and waste. The incorporation of emerging technology into current and conventional packaging continues to require multidisciplinary professional cooperation, consumer demand, and also where appropriate, encouragement, and implementation from legal bodies.

At a time when technology has come to us in the century, with the use of smart devices and increased engagement, a customer group has arisen that is more mindful of learning, asking, and consuming. Consumers have come to favor hygienic, reliable, and convenient goods across their product range. In this sense, the importance of packaging, which includes valuable details about the product and its content and is a crucial factor in the protection of the product, has also intensified for consumers.

With the emergence of diseases associated with product consumption on a global scale, the expectations of the conscientious customer population concerning the goods they have bought and the packaging that protects these items have shifted. Consumers have begun to be more cautious, particularly in the food industry and in items that could be allergenic. This sensitivity has entailed the development of a traceable system in other industries as well as in the ready-made food industry. As a result of all these advances and improvements, ‘smart packaging technology’ has evolved. With the smart packaging technology, also known as the ‘smart tag,’ it has become possible to track all the changes that the goods are subjected to during the process, from manufacturing to consumption and including the physical or chemical changes that exist in the products.

As if the packaging was originally designed to preserve the goods, the intended use and market purposes have evolved. Packaging has become a communication mechanism not only for the safety of the product but also in the cycle from the development of the product to its delivery to the end-user. The only unchangeable feature or intent of the packaging is to interact with the user.

Nowadays, smart packaging has found a role in the food field mainly to deliver practically all food items to end-users across broad markets and to avoid the harmful impact of any condition that could emerge in this phase on public health. Companies Fresh Check®, 3M Monitor Mark®, Vitsab®, PakSense®, and OnVu® produce smart packaging for food products in which time and temperature are critical. Smart packaging developed only by Fresh Check® is used successfully in more than 400 items.

It’s Fresh®, Fresh Tag® and Ripe Sense® produce smart packaging that warns customers about the freshness or maturity of the items. These connected packages were initially evaluated on pears, and when it was shown that they had successfully calculated and announced the degree of maturity, they continued to be tested on other products. Ageless-Eye®, Vitalon®, OxySense Inc.®, and Samso Chacker®, on the other hand, manufacture oxygen and carbon dioxide-sensitive packages and alert customers by adjusting color in the case of oxygen or carbon dioxide gasses found within the product. Again, these firms are making smart food packages. Also, smart packages are developed by Toxin GuardTM® and Food Sentinel SystemTM® companies to identify pathogens that may contaminate food items by external sources.

Changes in technology also introduced the use of the packaging as a quality management mechanism to the duties of securing the product, enabling its transportation, and interacting with the customer. The emergence and advancement of smart packaging technology with IoT on a day-to-day basis has been influential in shaping and gaining the value of this role. With the creation of indicators and sensors that give the packaging a smart function, information is gathered for all steps during production and connected packaging.

Food safety is a major constituent to improve public health and the welfare of society. According to WHO, about 1 in 10 people worldwide fall ill due to contaminated food, and almost 420 000 people die every year due to unsafe food. WHO estimated that contaminated food contains harmful bacteria, chemicals, prions, viruses and parasites, leading to 200 diseases, including cancer and diarrhea. It depicts that food safety, nutrition, and food protection are associated with each other. The distribution of unsafe food formulates a venomous cycle of disease and malnutrition, disturbing the health of infants, children, elders, and the sick. However, the real-monitoring of food can stop this malicious cycle, and food companies can save millions’ lives.   

By installing real-monitoring technique to control foodborne illness throughout the food supply chain, companies can determine the quality of food items and decide whether it is contaminated or not. 

Both active and intelligent packaging are promising technologies that have provided real-monitoring of foods to inform both consumers and companies about food quality. Besides, continuous advancement in the sensor and biosensor field also plays an essential role in monitoring food quality. Multifunctional sensing systems, materials, devices and equipment attached to these sensors/biosensors make the entire process control food-borne illness easy and flexible.  

Active and intelligent packaging of products is the functions of smart packaging and RFID technology.  The smart covering of food integrated with RFID labels offers countless advantages, among which protection of food and communication from the inside of food comes first. In smart packaging, we have the following functions;

Active functions: It performs functions of both active scavengers and active emitters. An active scavenger is used to collect gases emitted from the food, and an active emitter is used to emit gases to the food.

Intelligent functions: The intelligent functions of smart packaging gather information about how it changes through environmental conditions, temperature, humidity and pressure during storage and transportation mediums. Intelligent packaging system provides changing condition of food quality following heat, time and temperature situations. Smart and intelligent packaging has different sensors like biosensors, chemical sensors and gas sensors, indicators such as integrity, freshness and TTI-time-temperature indicators, barcode, and RFID technology message from the inside of the product to the outer world.  

High food safety and quality have also been achieved through deploying diverse active and intelligent packaging technologies into the packaging system from the past few years. Similarly, prolonged shelf life, high consumer satisfaction, limited ratios of food wastage and environmental benefits to improve food preservation are all the benefits of the smart, active and intelligent packaging system. 

Due to all these benefits, the demand for smart packaging solutions has been increasing, as reported by AIPIA (Active and Intelligence Packaging Industry Association). The increasing demand of food companies has pushed the eAgile, a Michigan-based technology provider to design smart packaging for food containers, drinks, bottles and other dishes. This technology’s basic purpose was to provide the safety of products, track temperature conditions, monitor food-borne conditions, and fight against counterfeiting.