BY SUSAN K. LACEFIELD, EDITOR AT LARGE
PACKAGING AND LABELING
Material Handling
WHETHER COMPANIES WANT TO ADMIT IT OR NOT,
product counterfeiting is a huge and growing problem.
The global value of counterfeit goods runs to $1.5 trillion
per year and is increasing at a rate of 3 percent annually,
according to estimates from PMMI, the association for
packaging and processing technologies.
And it’s not just luxury goods or pharmaceuticals that are
at risk. Robert Ryckman, vice president of market development for the labeling company CCL Industries and who
has been working on product security for 20 years, has seen
cases of counterfeiting that involved products worth only a
dollar. As for why fraudsters would bother with low-value
items, it’s a matter of expedience. It’s easier to produce
a tube of fake toothpaste or shampoo than a fake luxury
item. Plus, consumers are less likely to be suspicious of cut-rate toiletries than of severely discounted Rolex watches or
Coach bags.
So how can you better protect your goods from coun-
terfeiting? Part of the solution might be right under your
nose: the packaging and labeling you already use for your
products.
“Packaging is one possible countermeasure or control
toring of the movements.”
Because almost every product has some sort of package
or label, packaging provides a great vehicle for carrying anti-counterfeiting technology, Ryckman adds. It also
ensures that the “authentication” for the product—
typically, a difficult-to-copy identifying mark—is always traveling
with it.
