TECHNOLOGY | ANTI-COUNTERFEITING
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 engage- ment 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 – al- lowing 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 Technolo- gies include 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.
Right: This TruTag taggant is extruded into a plastic film and can be identified by a cell phone torch light
Taggants can be incorporated into a
masterbatch or applied directly to plastics
Beyond that, customers are looking for low cost, ease of implementation and a something that can be authenticated on mass.”
Global challenges According to Circularise, as supply chains have become increasingly global and complex, the risk of counterfeit products and false claims of the characteristics of products grows. “This has resulted in a growing market for anti-counterfeiting technologies that can protect companies, who face legal liability that can cost millions as well as reputational damage, and consumers, who receive poor quality products,” says Dr Shyaam Ramkumar, Lead in Business Development & Strategy at the company. “An OECD study in 2019 identified that the value
IMAGE: TRUUAG TECHNOLOGIES 60 COMPOUNDING WORLD | December 2022
of counterfeit goods has reached US$509bn. And one of the companies developing solutions against counterfeiting, Kafrit Group, estimates that US$284bn will be spent by governments and companies to combat counterfeiting,” he claims. “One of the key roles for anti-counterfeiting focuses on traceability and marking technologies. The main aim is to authenticate and verify the properties of products through unique barcodes, QR codes, speciality inks, or chemical tracers as they move along the supply chain,” Ramkumar says. “While these technologies provide a way to identify counterfeit products, an underlying data infrastructure is required to track and trace these products in order to identify their sources and where in the supply chain problems occur. By combining these technologies with the hyperledg-
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IMAGE: TRUUAG TECHNOLOGIES
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