The Disruptive Technology where any liquid is involved.
See it in action on YouTube
Identification and tracking solutions based on the patented CapTag® family of paper-thin standard-CapTag® UHF RFID and combination UHF & NFC smart-CapTag® labels now provide a revolutionary way of capturing the electronic identity of bottles of wine, spirits or champagnes, beer or soft drinks …… and even cosmetics & blood.
Conventional RFID labels, widely used to identify and track garments, don’t work for the drinks industry. They are too large and operate only at short range; because the liquid in the bottle absorbs the radio waves on which all conventional labels depend on for their communication.
Now, CapTag® labels have been developed, and 2 patents granted and with 5 further applications in progress, to uniquely use that radio absorption to read bottles, at high speed and from metres away … and, as no line of sight is needed, those bottles can also be read inside sealed cartons, wooden cases, or when clustered on shelves or conveyors – unlike QR or traditional barcodes.
CapTag® RFID Labels enable:
- Wineries, Bottlers, Distributors, Retailers, Restaurants & Hotels, using the standard CapTag® UHF labels, to build productivity solutions that enhance the efficiency of their businesses by streamlining the way stocks of bottles are received, stored and tracked, as well as enabling anti-counterfeiting and brand protection processes within the supply chain.
- Brands, additionally, using smart CapTag® dual frequency UHF/NFC variants, to interact with consumers, delivering personalised messages that develop & enhance direct relationships and build brand loyalty with those individual consumers.
Features
CapTag® based systems can be used globally, as they are totally compatible with:
- ISO/IEC standard Gen 2 RFID readers operating at the permitted UHF bands in each ITU region of the world.
- ‘smart-CapTag®’ dual frequency versions also support ISO/IEC14443 Type A, NFC Forum™ Type 2 specifications at 13.56MHz
Each ‘standard-CapTag®’ UHF label contains: 96-bit Unique Tag Identifier (TID) factory locked, including 48-bit unique serial number; a 128 or 96bit code area, programmable with an EPC identity; & optionally 32bits of user programmable data where the EPC area is 96 bit.
Secure data relating to the bottle ID can be stored on web-accessed data bases for additional security …. or by using the Product Status Flag bit enabling the CapTag® label to be used as EAS (Electronic Article Surveillance) tag without the need for a back-end data base
Tamper-evident versions to protect the contents of the bottle operate either: by destroying the CapTag® label functionality; or by irreversibly changing the CapTag® label’s chip to another unique identity, when the bottle is opened or tampered with
Each ‘smart-CapTag ®’ dual frequency version is manufactured with a 96-bit unalterable unique identifier (UID) with the same UID number being used by both RF protocols to ensure full traceability. For the NFC interface, the smart counter increments its value each time the NFC message has been read by the end-user.
Benefits & Business Value
With a particular focus on Retailers (the Off-Trade); Hotels, Clubs & Restaurants (the On-Trade); & Brand Owners and coupled with IT systems & data analytics, bottles enabled with CapTag® labels provide the ability to:
- reduce labour costs & provide greater stock accuracy by automating the process of checking the number, identity & authenticity of bottles being despatched & received throughout the supply chain
- count stock on display or back store on a regular, even shift based, pattern with no need, for example, to disturb laid down ‘fine wines’, so monitoring patterns of stock loss – deterring staff theft & reducing shrinkage
- provide alerts for stock movement, or when bottles are removed, for extra security,
- hunt & find specific bottles quickly in retail outlets or cellars, to match bottles to customer order
- generate interactive consumer communication & engagement with smart-CapTag®
- specifically increase gross margins for On-Trade sales by an expected 4% with <12 month payback