In response to rising prices and increasing retail theft, Coveris has set its sights on bolstering its security label production through further investments and R&D.
According to the British Retail Consortium, the cost-of-living crisis and resultant high prices have almost doubled shoplifting incidents in England and Wales to their highest level in over 20 years. At 45,000 incidents a day, it is said to cost UK retail around £1.8 billion a year.
Retailers are aiming to increase security measures to counteract theft, minimize shrinkage, and maximize on-shelf availability. This time last year, for example, Co-op trialled ‘dummy display packaging’ for the high-value products often targeted for theft and resale, including coffee, washing powder, and laundry gel.
Coveris’ composite SourceTag labels make use of radio frequency or acoustic magnetic tags in pursuit of a seamless, singular security label that reduces costs, the number of SKUs, and the need for secondary tag application. The labels are said to work with existing electronic article surveillance antenna systems in stores and result in a ‘covert’ security solution that does not require in-store application or secondary SKUs.
SourceTag is also compatible with self-checkouts, with Coveris claiming that 80% of retail sales now take place via self-service. Since the tags are designed to deactivate at sale, they are set to save time otherwise spent removing security labels at point-of-purchase.
It is hoped that the SourceTag brand will counteract the theft of higher-value food and non-food goods such as meat, cheese, and beverages. More broadly, Coveris claims that increasing incidents and the subsequent rise in retail demand has driven its volumes up more than 60% year-on-year, and that further investment and R&D will also boost its security formats and sustainable impact.
“We are working really hard alongside our retail and manufacturing partners to not only reduce instore theft, but also waste, as part of our No Waste vision,” said Nigel Hewitt, sales director of Coveris’ Paper division. “Compared to secondary tagging, our current SourceTag labels offer a more sustainable solution as well as reducing SKUs, cost, process and time, however delivery of a fully sustainable solution is a pioneering development that we are looking to launch within the market imminently.”
Another safety measure in labelling comes from Reelables. Its printable 5G label solution – for which it has been nominated as a finalist at this year’s Sustainability Awards – is designed to connect to a cellular network, generate accurate product data, and track products across their supply chains. In turn, it is sent to prevent theft, fraud, and items going missing in transit.
Meanwhile, we spoke to Scurri CRO Fergal O’Carroll back in 2022. The conversation revolved around doorstep parcel theft and how packaging companies could circumvent it, including by developing more agile, data-driven supply networks.
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