German Retailer's Packaging Incorporates Digital Watermarking

Netto Marken-Discount, a German retailer with 4,300 stores, announced its Netto brand products are now Digimarc recycle-ready. Netto food and beverage products have Digimarc watermarks, imperceptible to humans but machine-readable, incorporated into the packaging.

The product digitization facilities product scanning at checkout, as well as being compatible with future recycling sortation. Digimarc Recycle links the covert watermarks with an extensible cloud-based repository of product attributes. Also, the same information used to drive this advanced sortation in facilities can provide product-specific and location-based disposal instructions via a brand-owned direct-to-consumer digital communication channel accessed via on-pack watermarks or QR codes.

Digimarc Recycle is expected to launch soon in France and Canada, with conversations ongoing in other countries. The technology has also been chosen to guard the integrity of a deposit return program.

“Netto is now also well positioned to adopt Digimarc Recycle by leveraging the same Digimarc digital watermarking technology that makes the checkout easier and more efficient. We are ready and excited for Digimarc Recycle to come to Germany in the near future,” says Christina Stylianou, corporate spokesperson at Netto.