Foiling the counterfeiters
packaging manufacturer Rock-Tenn to develop a paperboard-based
package with brand protection capabilities.
The new product, called Rock-Tenn White Label Security Board, features taggants and read-write threads in its face stock manufactured from Appleton's TechMark line of intelligent papers.
These taggants and read-write threads are part of the actual face stock paper itself. The taggants are invisible under ordinary light. But when viewed under ultraviolet, or black light, they become readily visible and allow for quick visual verification. In addition, the taggants can be formulated to create a unique identifying code.
These covert characteristics, which are very difficult to duplicate or alter, can be analysed and decoded by a handheld reader. Appleton's TechMark Vericam reader automatically identifies the taggants in the face stock and confirms the authenticity of the product.
The Rock-Tenn White Label face stock can also incorporate embedded security threads. TechMark RW (read-write) threads go far beyond visual identification. They carry encrypted information to uniquely authenticate and track products with a significantly higher level of brand protection security.
"Rock-Tenn White Label Security Board with TechMark taggants and machine-readable threads gives brand owners the ability to quickly identify a genuine product from a fake," said Gary Jones, director of security products for Appleton. "This is a frontline defence in combating the growing problem of product counterfeiting, piracy and diversion."
This problem is something that food manufacturers are especially aware of, what with traceability legislation coming into force. Companies are increasingly turning to solutions that combine multiple security elements to protect products against counterfeiting.
When different manufacturing techniques are required to copy security features that have been used, this increases the difficulty of counterfeiting enormously. For this reason, French foil manufacturer Kurz has launched a comprehensive brand protection product range with many component combination possibilities, including a wide range of difficult-to-copy OVDs (optical variable devices) such as holograms and the high-tech Trustseal security option.
Kurz has also developed security features based on a complex, hard-to-imitate foil technology. Diffractive effects such as customised-design foils with continuous, ultra-fine geometric patterns, plain foils with multi-angle rainbow colour effects or single-image holograms are available from Kurz on transparent foil.
Transparent diffractive foils are difficult to imitate because specialist foil-related know-how is required to manufacture them. Secondly, they serve as an additional security feature for protecting important readable information against counterfeiting, like personal data, photos, of manufacture or use-by-dates and warranty codes. The information remains clearly readable at all times but it is protected: any tampering of the foil to falsify the stored data and information will be readily recognisable.
Transparent diffractive foils can also be used to enhance packaging and provide brand protection without modifying the product design. The recognition effect of the original design is fully retained so no new brand building is necessary.
The market for transparent foils has increased rapidly in the last few years. Partly this is due to growing awareness from manufacturers that they must do their utmost to ensure the security of their product. More and more are looking to foil as a means of achieving this aim.
