Description

The global smart food and beverage label market was valued at USD 10.97 billion in 2020 to USD 31.79 billion by 2027, at a CAGR of 19.8% from 2021 to 2027. Smart packaging is increasingly evolving in the packaged food industry. Increased demand for packaging that shows and maintains product quality across the supply chain is a significant factor driving the smart packaging industry's growth. In existing packaging formats, radio-frequency identification (RFID) and smart labels are simple to incorporate. These labels help deter fraud; they also help locate items as they travel across the supply chain. The Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) mandates CPGs to provide details of the manufacturer and distributor of a product, giving businesses the responsibility to monitor the journey of their goods.

Smart labels are used to track the temperature and consistency of the products and when a product has been compromised. These product labels help ensure product protection to customers, allowing them to check specific product codes and confirm that the product has not been manipulated. This technology is also used to avoid recalls and mitigate their effect by recognizing where and how any contamination occurred in the supply chain and finding the affected product.

Increased demand for packaged products has been created by the growing population, urbanization, and disposable income. Presently, the changing work conditions and the fast-paced lifestyle have also significantly transformed the packaged food industry. Consumers rely heavily on packaged goods for their everyday lifestyle. The increasing health problems, on the other hand, leave customers uncertain about their buying habits. All these issues can be tackled with smart label usage in the food and beverage industry. The smart label helps resolve concerns in the consumers’ minds by providing them with a complete set of information about the packaged product, allowing them to make informed decisions.

Global Smart Food and Beverage Label Market Dynamics

Drivers: Growing Consumer Demands for Food Authentication

The adoption of smart labels has witnessed a sharp increase in the food industry as demand for product authentication and the ability to improve food safety continues to rise. Having connected packaging solutions like smart labels allows end consumers to access all traceable information across the supply chain. Smart labeling provides consumers with a digital source of nutrition, ingredients, allergen, and additional information which may or may not appear on the physical label printed on the packaging or attached to the product itself. Moreover, smart labels also help consumers pursue a wide range of products from design to shelf, which is projected to boost the demand significantly. Food counterfeit, the act of intentional substitution, addition, contamination, and misinterpretation of food products like spices and herbs, dairy products, fruit juice, seafood, meat, oils, and others, is a growing problem for customers, manufacturers, and distributors across the globe. It damages a company’s reputation, disrupts the market, and impacts consumer’s trust in the industry. While there are many forms of food counterfeit, it is defined by the Food Standards Agency (FSA) as two types: selling unsafe and potentially harmful food and intentionally misinterpreting food. Food items most vulnerable to food counterfeit include dairy products, honey, oil, fish, meat, juices, coffee, herbs, and spices. Therefore, food authenticity evaluation has been required rapidly in the food and beverage industry. The review ensures the originality and safety of any food product that comes into the market. This evaluation is achieved by using specific advanced methods and techniques. Some ways include radio frequency identification (RFID) labels that can be attached to food products and can automatically use electromagnetic fields to track products through the supply chain. It brings traceability to the product, which is essential to trace the source of food and avoid counterfeit products. This ultimately helps to improve food security and safety, particularly for perishable goods like meat, seafood, and dairy products.

Restraints: High Implementation Cost for the Smart Food and Beverage Labels

Implementing smart labels such as radio frequency identification (RFID) or Near-Field Communication (NFC) tags is not as simple as applying the tag on a shipping case or pallet. Several other variables come into play. According to some estimates, setting up an RFID tagging system for one low-capacity casing line, which meets minimum RFID mandates, can cost conservatively around $75,000-$100,000 range. In addition to that, the manufacturer must add about 40-50 cents per passive tag in the cost of the labels themselves, depending on the volume purchased and the amount of information embedded in the tags. The price might run around $10 per tag for active tags integrated with truck-transport GPS, depicting a high implementation and running costs. Smart labels will fundamentally transform the supply chain management and how the industry tracks, traces and maintains the products delivered to retailers and consumers. The primary R&D goal is to explore and evaluate the software and hardware designs. The food industry needs to achieve optimum implementation and effectiveness of smart label systems.

Opportunities: Growing Confidence and Increasing Consumer Dependence on IoT Technologies

The Internet of Things (IoT) has attained enormous popularity in recent years as it seeks to provide people with innovative and intelligent technologies and services. All the physical devices are connected to the web and can communicate with each other. IoT products and services cover a range of markets, including healthcare, retail, food and beverage, and hospitality, among others. As consumers are becoming educated, they are becoming highly dependent on the technology because of the information and transparency it provides about the products, which is further helping the consumers to make informed decisions.

IoT benefits not only the consumers but also the retail owners, manufacturers, and suppliers. They are all implementing IoT-based technologies to keep track of their goods and services and keep up with fast-paced businesses. In this technology era, the changing lifestyles coincide with modern IoT and have changed the consumer's viewpoint and supply chain's face. An adaptation toward such an efficient technology in the form of smart labels and tags substantially enhances the status of food industries by gaining the consumer's trust and confidence. As studies have proved, faith plays a crucial role in the consumers' decision to IoT technologies and services. It helps them overcome perceptions of the risk and uncertainty associated with it and improves the customers’ acceptance and intention of adoption.

Scope of the Report

The study categorizes the smart food and beverage label market based on application, product, and regions.

By Application Outlook (Revenue, 2017-2027, USD Million)

• Food
• Beverage

By Product Outlook (Revenue, 2017-2027, USD Million)

• RFID
• NFC
• Temperature Sensing Labels
• Others

By Region Outlook (Revenue, 2017-2027, USD Million)

• North America (US, Canada, Mexico)
• South America (Brazil, Argentina, Colombia, Peru, Rest of Latin America)
• Europe (Germany, Italy, France, UK, Spain, Poland, Russia, Slovenia, Slovakia, Hungary, Czech Republic, Belgium, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Rest of Europe)
• Asia Pacific (China, Japan, India, South Korea, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, Myanmar, Cambodia, the Philippines, Singapore, Australia & New Zealand, Rest of Asia Pacific)
• The Middle East & Africa (Saudi Arabia, UAE, South Africa, Northern Africa, Rest of MEA)

RFID labels/tags, by product, is estimated to be the fastest-growing segment during the forecast period

Based on the product, the global smart food and beverage label market has been segmented into RFID, NFC, Temperature Sensing Labels, and Others. In 2020, RFID accounted for the fastest-growing segment with a CAGR of 19.6% in the global smart food and beverage label market during the forecast period and having a revenue share of 31.70%.

The initial steps of RFID breaking into the food business has plenty to offer to the participants. The business leaders are also taking an active part in the food industry's transition toward transparency. RFID-giant Avery Dennison Corporation is one of the initial players to start working on the market. The company entered the industry by picking up the first-ever shipment of blockchain beef, which was made using RFID tagging. It offers a potential industry-changing degree of traceability and security, which can only be possible via RFID at present.

China accounts for the highest CAGR during the forecast period in the smart food and beverage label market.

Based on region, the global smart food and beverage label market has been segmented into North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, South America, and the Middle East & Africa. China has a growth rate of 23.4% during the forecast period 2021-2027. China has been actively investing in growth in the packaged food and beverage sector. The country is one of the world's largest dairy markets and has witnessed an enormous demand for packaged food and beverages. The explanation behind this is that urbanization and per capita income are rising. The need for clear and convincing food labeling in China is witnessing high demand.

As with other global regions, health, wellness, and convenience developments are shaping China's packaged food industry. Consumers are more interested in the manufacturing processes and nutritional values the packaged food products are offering. They also prefer food packaging types that highlight nutrition panels, allowing them to see the ingredients in the food they buy. Due to this, China is a massive market for packaged food products. Smart labels help manufacturers effectively deal with all sorts of challenges the packaged food industry faces. China is one of the biggest exporters and consumers of packaged goods. China's product market is highly competitive in product pricing. Until smart labeling becomes more economical than traditional labeling, China remains a difficult market to capture.

Key Market Players

Major players of the smart food and beverage label market, such as Thin Film Electronics ASA and Qliktag Software Inc., also made a significant number of product launches in the market. Other players in this segment are Avery Dennison Corporation, Checkpoint Systems, Inc., Sato Holdings Corporation, and Alien Technology, LLC.

Recent Developments

• In April 2020, Label Insight expanded its operations in the Canadian market to offer Smart Label and accelerate the adoption of Smart Label to support customers' needs.
• In May 2019, Label Insight, Inc. formed a partnership with IRI, a big data and analytics solution providing company, to offer CPG retailers and manufacturers more detailed insight into product performance based on ingredients and nutrition label data.
• In March 2020, Avery Dennison Corporation acquired Smartrac N.V.'s transponder division, involved in developing and manufacturing RFID inlay, to expand its intelligent labels platform across multiple end markets and customers.
• In December 2018, Qliktag Software Inc., an IoT platform innovator for everyday consumer products, received the rising star 2018 and excellent user experience 2018 award by Finance Online, measuring and scoring the SaaS platforms.

Key Issues Addressed

• What is the market size by various segmentation of the smart food and beverage label by region and its respective countries?
• What are the customer buying behavior, key takeaways, and Porter's 5 forces of the smart food and beverage label market?
• What are the key opportunities and trends for the smart food and beverage label supply chain manufacturers?
• What are the fundamental dynamics (drivers, restraints, opportunities, and challenges) of the market?
• What and how regulations, schemes, patents, and policies are impacting the growth of the market?
• What are the upcoming technological solutions influencing market trends? How will existing companies adapt to the new change in technology?
• The market player positioning, top winning strategies by years, company product developments, and launches will be?
• How has COVID-19 impacted the demand and sales of smart food and beverage labels in the global market? Also, the expected BPS drop or rise count of the market and market predicted recovery period.
• Detailed analysis of the competitors and their latest launch, and what are the prominent startups introduced in the target market? Also, detailed company profiling of 25+ leading and prominent companies in the market.