Application of RFID in Beverage Retail Industry

In recent years, some major US retailers such as Wal-Mart, Target, and Albertson’s have begun requiring their suppliers (including beverage suppliers) to deploy RFID technology at the pallet level. For the future, people have also envisaged plans for the application of RFID technology, such as the “Smart Shelf” plan. After this plan is completed, when consumers push a shopping cart filled with RFID label goods through the supermarket exit, read The fetcher will read the identification information on the goods in an instant, and people no longer have to wait in line to check out. However, the most typical application of RFID technology is focused on inventory management: it is used to track the storage and transportation of goods, and at the same time check the status and location of products during transportation.

All of these have promoted the development of RFID technology and its application in various industries. The retail industry of beverages as FMCG is absolutely no exception.

1. RFID technology will bring many benefits to the beverage retail industry
For beverage manufacturers, RFID identification and scanning are meaningless in the maintenance room. However, in the retail field, RFID technology can improve the supply chain supply efficiency, that’s why retailers are enthusiastic about establishing RFID systems.

2. Solve the problem of out of stock
Maximizing supply chain transparency is an important goal for retailers. Matt Ream, senior manager of RFID systems at Zebra Technologies International, said: “One of the biggest problems for retailers is that when a consumer wants to buy a product, the product is already out of stock. If the consumer haven’t bought he want, in most cases he will buy it elsewhere. The retailer will not only lose the opportunity to sell this product, but also lose this consumer to buy other goods in his own store. . WalMart once pointed out that if the 1% product out-of-stock problem can be solved , WalMart will be able to obtain an additional 2.5 billion US dollars in sales revenue. In order to do this, retailers will have to check why the goods are out of stock? Is the retailer unaware that the goods are out of stock? Or do they don;t know that there is still stock in their warehouse? Or is the goods being transported from the factory to the supermarket? RFID can give the retailers the transparency they want and tell them they have it now and where is the possession.

3. Reduce safety stock quantity
If your inventory transparent is enough, you can theoretically reduce the amount of safe inventory which you must maintain, thereby reducing the inventory of all commodities and saving a lot of cost.

4. Reduce labor costs
Some people argue that Barcode can do same job as RFID technology , but barcode require more physical scanning, which usually brings more human operations. Ream said: “Barcode scanning is a labor-intensive job, which is a manual operation. RFID is a more automated technology that can increase the reading speed and supply chain transparency without adding additional labor costs.

5. RFID technology will bring many benefits to beverage manufacturers
Ream believes: “The various benefits that RFID brings to the beverage manufacturing industry are interrelated. Many of the functions it has are not available in other technologies. Many companies initially applied RFID technology only for one reason, step by step they began to discover other powerful features of RFID technology.”

What benefits can beverage manufacturers get from RFID technology? These benefits are gradually reflected step by step. The first is to meet the retailer’s RFID adaptation requirements and maintain a good trade relationship with the retailer; then, as WalMart recently said, WalMart will post the inventory on the Internet in 30 minutes after the first reading of the product’s RFID tags. Everyone can check. This can help beverage manufacturers track the status of products in the supply chain; and as RFID technology develops more and more deeply, and the systems of suppliers and partners and customers begin to integrate, other benefits have gradually emerged, including Higher-level warehouse management automation and faster supply chain response speeds due to increased communication and low inventory.

The food and beverage industry belongs to FMCG. RFID meets the requirements of FMCG of accurate and fast logistics,and the transparent supply chain. The difference between barcode and RFID is from box label to single RFID label, and each single product has an ID number. HUAYUAN has been engaged in RFID R&D and production for 20+ years, have produced 10m+ RFID tags every month. A key partner of Avery Dennison in Asia, and a member of RAIN, AIM and GS1. Since UHF RFID is particularly sensitive to the environment. Liquid and metal products have always been a challenge that plagues RFID applications; especially in liquid products, we have developed the following 3 types of on liquid RFID tag that can adapt to the liquid environment.

Graphene RFID tag: Eco-friendly, Tamper proof
Special designed antenna RFID anti liquid inlay: Specially designed antenna
AD-301 UHF RFID inlay: Specially designed antenna for medical & healthcare liquid

For more info, please feel free to contact HUAYUAN sales team.