Anti-Counterfeiting Solutions for Luxury Food

Novel End-to-End Anti-Counterfeiting Solutions for Luxury Food

NanoMatriX has developed unique end-to-end anti-counterfeiting solutions for the luxury food industry given the unique challenges that food brands and food manufacturers face. Luxury foods are rare, expensive, or have a complex manufacturing process and in some instances receive protected regional origin status. They are made of high-quality premium ingredients.

NanoMatriX is leveraging new anti-fraud technologies such as invisible particles (MatriX-Mark Solutions) that can be mixed in printing ink for food labels, plastic food containers or bottle caps which can only be detected using dedicated scanners. In addition to using advanced technologies for detection of food fraud, NanoMatriX is also using more sophisticated systems (TrackMatriX®) for improving traceability of foods and food ingredients from “farm to fork” that are required to combat food fraud.

Fighting Counterfeits

In the past, food scandals were only reported in the news. Today however, the threat of counterfeit food products is greater as consumers report on social media about their negative experience which will impact brand reputation. Luxury food brand owners should be aware of the latest techniques and tactics to protect their brand against counterfeits, grey market, parallel trading, production overrun, un-authorized opening, theft, product refilling, etc.

Building Brand Loyalty and Consumer Engagement

For premium food brand owners and retailers who target a niche audience, fostering brand loyalty programs through better digital consumer engagement, and risk-free product return management would maximize profits in the long run.

Food Fraud & Other Key Issues in the Food Industry

The luxury food or regional delicacy is usually a rare or expensive food item that is considered highly desirable, sophisticated or peculiarly distinctive, within a given culture. The food industry is among the top five most valuable and vulnerable segments for counterfeiting. The $4-billion global herb and spice industry is in constant threat of adulteration by fraudsters.

$40 Billion Annually

Estimated cost of food fraud to the food sector globally

85%

Percentage of samples identified as mislabelled in one investigation of fishery products sold online in China

3600 tonnes & 9.7 million liters

Counterfeit or substandard food and beverages seized in OPSON VII operation across 67 countries (Europol & INTERPOL)

77%

Percentage of consumers who would not know how to spot a counterfeit product

References:

Innovative Anti-Counterfeiting Solutions for the Luxury Food Industry

High-Security Labels

NanoMatriX’s multi-level anti-counterfeit labels with embedded, overt, covert and forensic features to help luxury food companies protect their brand.

The security graphic features are designed through special anti-counterfeiting software to create a non-duplicable image through mathematical algorithms. For example, guilloche, relief, latent, etc. All of these features are created or combined with other security graphic features.

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  • Guilloche: Form of two or even more interwoven fine lines to generate specific patterns by mathematical algorithms. The structure of design is intricate and repetitive pattern which can prevent any fabrication or duplication.
  • Relief: Line patterns with line width modulation, wavy line patterns and which can enhance convex and three-dimensional display effect of graphics.
  • Anti-copy: Combination of special line patterns and graphics to form a graphic in split lines. Split lines appear when the magnifying glass is used. The split lines can serve as anti-copy lines, thereby being blurred out when photo-copies are made from the original document.
  • Latent image: Hidden patterns or texts. Integration of parallel lines, Guilloche and patterns as a hidden anti-counterfeiting covert information. The hidden image or text appears when observing the image with a specific optical angle.
  • Microtext: Tiny texts that can only be viewed when magnified. Any reproduction machine is unable to identify and copy the microtext but in dotted or solid line because of downgrading resolution after scanning or photocopying.

Thermochromic Ink

Our range of temperature-sensitive thermochromic inks are widely used in premium food packaging. Thermochromic inks change appearance/color when exposed to various selected temperatures.

This change in color has a variety of applications such as safeguards for temperature-safe handling indicators and other applications in food and beverage packaging. It can be used to let customers know when products are at the proper temperature to consume, create added interest in packaging design, or create an interactive experience with consumers like revealing information/additional designs to consumers when they grab your product (upon reaching a certain temperature).

We provide an extensive range of thermochromic inks (reversible and irreversible).

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Holographic Labels

Our hologram brand protection solutions comprise multi-level security holographic labels with overt, covert and forensic features suited for the luxury food industry. Tamper-evident features and security taggants in the holographic security stickers help to ensure that food companies identify parallel trading, counterfeits, warranty return fraud, or production overrun.

Our novel hologram authentication technology (used in conjunction with QR codes) can be used as anti-fraud detection systems and traceability systems. 

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Matrix-Mark™ Solutions

Matrix-Mark™ Taggants can help take the brand security of the food industry to the next level by making counterfeiting impossible.

These taggants are invisible particles (cannot be detected by IR / UV) and can be mixed in printing ink for food labels, plastic food containers or caps of bottles and can only be detected using dedicated scanners. These inorganic markers also withstand high physical and chemical resistance tests and help in the long-term authentication. 

Product authentication can be readily executed with the help of specialized sensors, imparting product integrity to one’s brand. Furthermore, the optional forensic feature added in the taggants can be legally enforceable evidence, thereby proving the product’s authenticity in a court of law. 

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TrackMatriX® SaaS Solutions

TrackMatriX® is a SaaS on-demand platform for brand protection and consumer engagement. 

The platform features product authentication, food supply chain traceability, and consumer engagement via QR codes or NFC tags. It allows food companies to track products from the factory to the retail store and up to the consumer.

Using TrackMatriX®, food companies will be able to monitor high-value product flows, gain deep consumer and supply chain insights / data sets, and leverage automatic reporting of counterfeiting attempts. 

The platform provides brand owners deep consumer and supply chain insights regarding their food products like real-time GPS location, scanning frequencies and even suspicious activity alerts. Meanwhile such data is also transferable to complement the client’s CRM/ERP/POS systems, thereby adding further value to the client’s consumer and supply chain database. 

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TrackMatriX® Geo / Lock / Cycle

These are advanced security QR codes or data carriers. These codes contain overt and covert (Lock) information about the product that can be accessed by scanning the code. Once scanned, consumers arrive at a landing page that could include a link to the company website, a digital coupon, an event invite, or any other engagement tool that the brand desires.

TrackMatriX® NFC

It allows for a secure form of data exchange which can be used to authenticate individual products. Consumers can obtain different kinds of product information prior to opening or after opening (e.g. products specification, location tracking, storage temperature, or any other vital information). It uses thin, flexible NFC tags which are integrated into packaged foods. These identification tags are encoded into food packaging which readily identifies tampering or counterfeiting.

Use Cases

High-Security Labels + TrackMatriX®:
Global Luxury Pet Food Company

Problem

A global pet food company started to distribute their products in China, but found that it was difficult to monitor their market channels. Therefore, they wanted to gather information from their customers in order to develop a better marketing strategy and prevent potential counterfeit products.

The ever growing market for luxury pet food has made it increasingly important for customers to know if the products they are purchasing are genuine. It is also vital that the brands themselves know where their products are being distributed, so that they can keep track of sales and protect their brand.

Solution

After talking to many different security firms, the luxury pet food company found that NanoMatriX would give them the opportunity to create a fully customized brand protection solution to meet their every need.

NanoMatriX provided TrackMatriX® Geo and a custom high-security label solution which would allow them to Track and Trace the distribution of their products, engage their customer directly, as well as protect their brand from counterfeiting.

As per the brand’s specific requirements, NanoMatriX created a revolutionary QR-ID tag with a unique scratch-off code. After the QR code is scanned, a consumer can input the 6-digit code to reveal a secondary level information. The code not only allowed the customer to verify the product’s authenticity, but also gain access to exclusive brand content.

Furthermore, the TrackMatriX® Geo code enables the brand owners to measure customer engagement, adding valuable marketing data, further enhancing their campaigns and increasing sales.

Results

The project turned out to be a huge success. More than 50% of their customers used the additional scratch off code to further verify the authenticity of the products and participate in consumer engagement activities.

The TrackMatriX® SaaS platform keeps a record of the time and location of every product scan, providing the company with deep consumer analytics. The company was also able to monitor the distribution and frequency of interest in their products. This kind of valuable information continues to help the company refine its marketing strategies and move towards smart business growth.

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