Counterfeit wine in counterfeit wineskins

An excellent vintage with dinner. An exclusive whiskey for relaxing by the fire. Fine vodka or rum for high-end cocktails at the bar. When we treat ourselves to all of these we trust that the product also has the quality promised by the brand and the label. But in the market for wines and spirits, as in many others, the number of counterfeit products is on the rise. The International Federation of Spirits Producers puts the worldwide financial losses resulting from counterfeit alcoholic beverages at between 600 and 900 million euros per year, and rising. Cheap imitations not only cut into producers’ profits and tarnish their images, but can even be a serious health risk. The case of two German youths who died of methanol poisoning in Turkey after drinking adulterated vodka made headlines in the German press for weeks in 2009. For brand-name companies, that means that effective protective measures are important to keep counterfeit products from entering the supply chain and make product authenticity clearly evident to everyone.

In this segment, the requirements of brand protection meet the traditional demands of logistics and the needs associated with marketing. Brand protection officers want to distinguish originals from counterfeits quickly and securely, identify grey market goods, and prevent illicit refilling of containers. For logistics professionals, on the other hand, the critical factor is being able to trace the entire path taken by every individual product, from production to the time it reaches store shelves. And marketing experts are always looking for new ways to ensure customer loyalty and for exclusive types of closures or packaging that support and enhance brand value.

tesa scribos GmbH, the specialist in brand protection and product identification, has developed an industry-specific concept that can be used by wineries, distilleries, and other producers of exclusive brand-name beverages for effective protection of their brands and their products. The key element is physically secured coding. Every bottle or package is assigned an individual code and labeled with a counterfeit-proof adhesive label such as the tesa Holospot® or tesa® Code Seal.

To provide individualized protection from refilling, these labels can also be applied as seals on bottle tops. Any attempt to open the bottle causes irreparable damage to the label, making these efforts clearly evident. This means that it is impossible to reuse the seal or the bottle, boosting consumer confidence in the authenticity of the bottle’s contents and guaranteeing brand-name quality.

The counterfeit-proof tesa Holospot®, for example, is made up of several levels of saved information, some of it readable with the naked eye and some of it accessible only with a magnifying glass or scanner. This solution is permanently integrated in to the label of the bottle or on the packaging and can be designed to meet individual requirements.

The tesa scribos® brand protection concept can be incorporated smoothly into existing logistics processes. Merchandise tracking systems based on bar codes, 2D matrix codes, or RFID and NFC technology are easy to combine with the tesa scribos technology. This enables manufacturers to begin tracking the individual product early on, during the production phase, and then to link that product during packaging with the code used for the transportation packaging and, later, with a pallet label that uses RFID. In the logistics sector, this is how tesa scribos® supplies dependable quality control information and helps to unmask gray market goods. The advantages in terms of brand protection are obvious as well: Everyone involved in the logistics process, including customs agents, sales and distribution partners, and even end consumers, can check anytime to see whether a product is genuine.

In addition to the advantages in terms of brand protection and logistics, the innovative technology is opening up new options for customer loyalty initiatives. Consumers can register individual bottles via SMS or online, verifying their authenticity by entering the product code shown on the security label. Additional incentives such as giveaways can be linked to these activities as part of customer loyalty programs.