Opportunist thieves targeting premium meat products in supermarkets and stores will soon have to be on their guard following Linpac Plastics’ and electronic article surveillance (EAS) specialist Checkpoint’s joint launch of what they claim is the world’s first RF tagged meat tray.
The pair have responded to European premium meat theft rates, reportedly running as high as 6%, with the new LINfo tray, a thermoformed extruded EPS meat container featuring an 8.2MHz EAS anti-theft RF tag hermetically sealed in the base during manufacture, or ‘source tagged’.
Linpac Plastics says implanting RF tags in food trays has been tried previously, but problems of ‘naturally occurring leakage’ have usually compromised the trials. The secret of the LINfo system’s success is the robustness of the tray and the use of a new sealing process which prevents tags coming into contact with the contents.