Avery Dennison has long invested in solutions for the RFID marketplace, and that trend will not slow down any time soon. The substrate and adhesive specialist added to its capabilities in 2020 with the acquisition of Smartrac, and product development has been robust since that time.

Avery Dennison’s global manufacturing and R&D footprint enables it to serve customers in the most efficient manner. Avery Dennison’s legacy products and its Smartrac brand of inlays have both passed the ARC quality certification process, which demonstrates the company’s focus on quality management and providing consistent products to the global label and package printing industry.

“Avery Dennison is the world’s largest UHF RFID supplier,” states Jay Wittmann, sales operations manager, Intelligent Label at Avery Dennison. “Our team has the deepest industry knowledge which enables us to provide excellent support to our customers no matter if they are just getting started in RFID or have been in the business for many years.

“The acquisition of Smartrac has brought together two of the strongest manufacturers of RFID inlays,” he adds. “We now have the industry’s strongest overall portfolio with products that operate in the LF, HF, and UHF frequency bands. We have products that are meant to be a consumable, and other portfolios that are designed to last as long as the product it is being applied to.”

Avery Dennison’s wide breadth of solutions has enabled it to meet demand in many emerging segments. “Avery Dennison has continued to see more and more interest in RFID-enabled solutions for three main use cases,” says Wittmann. “The primary use case that has been most broadly adopted is for track-and-trace inventory management applications. In recent years, we have seen more interest and adoption of solutions looking to help provide authentication or consumer engagement. The fastest growing segments continue to be in healthcare, automotive, food and beverage, and we are starting to see more growth in horticulture applications.”

Along with designing new products to support growth in emerging segments, Avery Dennison has also been concentrated on developing products that will enable a faster recovery through the silicon chip shortage. Refreshing the company’s product lines with the latest chip sets from Avery Dennison’s suppliers will enable the industry’s capacity to expand due to suppliers being able to manufacture more chips in the same amount of time.

“We now have a broad product offering of M730, M750 and UCODE 9 chips on many of our inlays,” says Wittmann. “Some of the more exciting developments have been around our Dual frequency portfolio. We have new products that combine the power of UHF RFID within store theft deterrents of Electronic Article Surveillance (EAS).”

Avery Dennison has also released products that combine UHF RFID and HF RFID, allowing for inventory tracking at the item level with 1:1 product interaction for consumer engagement or medical records. On the industrial segment side, the company recently launched an ultra-robust embedded UHF RFID tag designed for the global multi-billion tire market. This tag is attached to the tires directly during vulcanization, enabling track and trace through the logistic chain and a range of environmental and safety features. 

With the e-commerce boom, smart solutions are more critical than ever. The Covid-19 pandemic has fueled a significant amount of growth, but that space had already been trending prior to 2020.

“We are seeing rapid growth in a few primary segments. Healthcare and pharmaceuticals have seen increased demand throughout the pandemic, and now with the Drug Supply Chain Security Act, we expect to see that momentum continue,” comments Wittmann. “We have also seen more adoption in the food and grocery space around the world as the result of supply chain issues and worker shortages.

“Though these segments do seem to be growing faster than some others, we are starting to see a broader adoption as more end users are becoming familiar with the technology,” he continues. “Anywhere there is a need to count many items very quickly, without a clear line of sight, there is a good use case for RFID. Likewise, any brand that would like to have a tool to engage directly with a consumer while they are holding your product, NFC technology is a great way to drive that consumer engagement without having to alter your label/product design greatly.”

As Wittmann notes, the pandemic has created a greater need for NFC technology, especially as consumers become more accustomed to contactless transactions. “We have seen growing interest and acceptance of NFC-based solutions,” explains Wittmann. “Just like a consumer would use NFC-based payment at a cash register through their phone or credit card, they are more likely to understand what ‘tap here’ on a product means. Wine and spirits, in particular, have seen greater interest in NFC-based smart labels, and we even partnered with a block chain solution provider to NFC enable at-home test kits to authenticate the product, and provide a private, safe, and secure transmission of data to the test provider.”

Sustainability has been a core concept for Avery Dennison throughout its product lines, and its smart solutions are no exception. “We’re also very proud of having become the first and only intelligent labels provider to receive the How2Recycle label for RFID paper hang tags,” adds Wittmann. “This development follows many years of research and development within Avery Dennison Smartrac to develop a unique combination of materials, adhesives, and inlay construction to ensure that our RFID labels are as easy to recycle as many of the products they appear on.”