Anti-counterfeit and traceability technology is helping to protect the integrity of premium Australian foods in Asia.
Beston Global Food Company, based in Adelaide, South Australia, has
developed a two-part platform to protect its products from
counterfeiters and is making it available to other Australian exporters.
The
first part of platform is an anti-counterfeit aspect, known as
Brandlok, that contains spectrum fingerprint technology similar to what
is used to prevent currency counterfeiting.
Developed by the
Australian Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation
(CSIRO) and commercialised by DataDot Technology, Brandlok is the result
of a partnership between Beston and DataDot.
The second part of
the system is an app-enabled platform called Oziris that traces the
origin of the individual ingredients in the product down to the batch
level, when the product was made and where, use by dates, and methods
and dates of shipping.
Beston, which has employed a closed loop supply chain
to expand rapidly into Asia, has been using the technology since
February for its own products and opened it up for other Australian food
exporters in July.
So far about 300 products are protected by the system – about 60 of Beston’s and 240 from external companies.
Beston Global Food Company
Chief Technology Officer Al Jawhari said about 80 per cent of the
companies using the system had experienced problems with food
counterfeiting in the past.
He said there was nothing else on the
market for Australian companies that combined hi-tech anti-counterfeit
measures with traceability functions on the one platform. Beston has
protected this technology with international patents and patent pending
IP.
“This is top end technology, it is extremely sophisticated and
even the process of application we only do it here in Australia to make
sure the loop is closed,” Jawhari said.
“There are other
fingerprint spectrum technologies that can be applied but they can be
counterfeited and that’s the critical part.
“We are in a leading position with this platform.”
The
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) says
counterfeited and pirated goods account for up to 2.5 per cent of world
trade, or as much as $US461 billion, significantly damaging companies
and state coffers.
According to a recent report by
MarketsandMarkets.com, the market for anti-counterfeit packaging is
projected to grow from US$82.05 billion in 2015 to US$153.95 billion by
2020, at an estimated compound annual growth rate of 13.4 per cent.
When a customer chooses a product with the Oziris/Brandlok technology they use the mobile app to scan the seal sticker, which contains spectrum fingerprint technology, to ensure its authenticity. More