Kodak intros new system to stop wine counterfeiting

10 June 2008

Kodak will soon showcase a new system to prevent counterfeiting in grape and wine packaging. Desirable, expensive and rare, premium Canadian ice wine is increasingly being exploited by counterfeiters and it is seen as a major challenge for the revenues and reputation of this emerging product. Kodak, with packaging provider Stanpac, is planning to bring out Kodak Traceless System for Anticounterfeiting. This is an easy authentication system applied to ice wine bottles via a silk screen method.

The world renowned Canadian wine known as ice wine that is high demand item all over the world. But many people are taking advantage of the brand by passing off inferior products as Canadian or counterfeiting well known premium labels. Ice wines are usually produced in extreme conditions using grapes still frozen on the vine. As Canada’s reputation for this product continues to grow and expand, counterfeiters increasingly target the region’s vintners. In places like China, where counterfeiting is widespread, sales of Canadian ice wine have dropped 60 percent from previously recorded sales volumes due in part to the significant number of phony products being marketed and sold to consumers as genuine. The Kodak Traceless System offers a solution that Canadian premium wine exporters can incorporate in their packaging to help eliminate this substantial problem.

Since 2007, Kodak has worked with several premium vintners using the TRACELESS System to develop authentication and protection solutions. Its forensically invisible markers are embedded during the manufacturing or printing process, allowing the winery to protect the authenticity of its high value product, as well as the investments of its customers and collectors. Kodak Security Solutions leverage Kodak’s expertise in material science, digital imaging, document imaging, and graphic communications to create a broad portfolio of products and technologies that protect against counterfeiting.