MCC and Digimarc collaborate on food traceability and recycling initiative with Orkla

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, recalls in the food industry cost approximately $29 million per occurrence. To help mitigate the impact of these recalls, MCC and Digimarc have co-developed a hybrid printing method in which Digimarc Barcode can be printed in large volumes.

Plastic clamshells containing berries, for example, can be serialized with a Digimarc-enhanced label produced by MCC’s hybrid printing process. Quality control procedures ensure Digimarc is scannable throughout the supply chain. When consumer brands combine serialized products with an IoT management platform, individual packages can easily be traced back to their origin at a specific farm, as well as across the entire supply chain.

‘Traceability is essential for consumer brands and food manufacturers to promote consumer safety, mitigate risk and gain real-time insight into raw materials and product locations in farms, warehouses, logistics and distribution centers,’ said Matthew Thomas, business development manager, MCC. ‘MCC’s rich expertise in the area of digital and hybrid printing brings Digimarc’s serialized identities to life and at scale. It’s a partnership that is perfectly positioned to impact the food supply chain of today and the future.’

MCC is also a member of the HolyGrail 2.0 project, and the company is utilizing an additional application of Digimarc—non-serialized digital watermarking identities—with its client Orkla, a leading supplier of branded consumer goods in Europe and India, to improve the sortation of plastic and promote a circular economy. The interactive IML (Injection Molding Labels) with Digimarc, can enable accurate and reliable scanning, to improve plastic sorting, and return more plastics back into the recovery stream.

‘With Digimarc digital watermarking, we can alter how people view waste. For example, when a bottle is empty, it becomes unwanted—something to be discarded. Now imagine if, instead of just throwing this away, the consumer could scan the bottle with their smartphone and be shown new possibilities,’ said Pavel Komurka, packaging innovation and sustainability coordinator at Orkla. ‘We could present ideas and provide examples, from reuse options to new products created at the end of a recycling stream. With Digimarc, we’re able to explore an exciting new world of opportunities.’

‘Our partnership with MCC provides a tangible way for consumer brands to get started on their traceability and recycling initiatives,’ said Scott Wilcox, VP of client services, Digimarc. ‘By partnering with the intelligent labeling experts at MCC and MCC Verstraete IML, we can work to serialize packaging and labels and help support brands and retailers eager to modernize their supply chains and gain more control, safety and insight into their product work flows.’