Gearing up for automated sortation: Netto consolidates packaging with Digimarc’s covert digital watermarks

10 Aug 2023 --- German retailer Netto Marken-Discount has digitized private label F&B products using Digimarc’s technology. The Netto-branded products at its 4,300 stores nationwide have incorporated a covert Digimarc digital watermark into the packaging to ensure easier scanning.

Digimarc connects every physical and digital item to a digital twin that captures product data, records events and interactions and enables new automations. The digital watermarking is imperceptible to the human eye across a package or label artwork’s surface area. 

“More [environmentally] sustainable packaging is becoming a business imperative, and Digimarc’s digital watermarks are transforming recycling as a validated way to improve circularity dramatically,” says Digimarc’s CEO Riley McCormack.

By linking covert digital watermarks with a cloud-based repository of product attributes (such as brand, SKU, product variant, packaging composition, food or non-food use), Digimarc Recycle reportedly overcomes the limitations of optical sorting technologies to drive a step-change improvement in the quality and quantity of recyclate.

“We initially cooperated with Digimarc to optimize our checkout by digitizing our private label F&B products with Digimarc’s technology,” adds Christina Stylianou, corporate spokesperson at Netto. 

“Netto is now also well positioned to adopt Digimarc Recycle by leveraging the same Digimarc digital watermarking technology that makes the checkout easier and more efficient. We are ready and excited for Digimarc Recycle to come to Germany in the near future.”

Automated sortation 
Digimarc Recycle is expected to launch soon in France and Canada, with plans in the pipeline for other countries.

In addition to providing the information necessary to power advanced sortation at recycling facilities, Digimarc Recycle captures and provides a full view of the post-purchase product journey, unlocking never-before-seen data benefiting stakeholders across the value chain.

According to the company, Digimarc Recycle represents a revolution in the sortation of plastic waste and recycling. The information to drive advanced sortation in facilities can also provide product-specific and location-based disposal instructions via a brand-owned direct-to-consumer digital communication channel accessed via on-pack watermarks or QR codes.

“At Netto, we are committed to less plastic packaging, more recycling, and more responsibility,” says Stylianou. “The fact that Digimarc digital watermarks [don’t] obscure our branding and therefore enhance packaging was another important factor in selecting Digimarc as a long-term partner.”

Edited by Radhika Sikaria