Digimarc Corporation and Wipak, announced a strategic partnership to help retailers and global brands embrace an eco-friendly strategy to product packaging. By combining Digimarc digital watermarks and Wipak?s printed film technology, the companies help food, medical device, and pharmaceutical companies achieve sustainability and profitability goals through innovative packaging designed to advance the fight against plastic pollution and speed the path to net zero. Digimarc Recycle works by linking covert digital watermarks (used to deterministically identify plastic packaging to any desired level of granularity) applied to plastic packaging with an extensible cloud-based repository of product attributes, including packaging composition, food or non-food grade plastic, product variant, brand, SKU, and more.

By integrating Digimarc digital watermarks into Wipak printed films, this revolutionary technology overcomes the limitations of current optical sorting technologies, significantly improving the quality and quantity of recycled materials while revealing invaluable and never-before-seen post-purchase product journey data. Sustainability and Profitability: Just as the Universal Product Code (UPC) or European Article Number (EAN) revolutionized retail operations while generating invaluable novel purchase data, Digimarc Recycle will revolutionize plastic recycling while generating invaluable novel consumption data and sustainability metrics. Beyond automating the identification of packaging collection and sortation at material recovery facilities (MRFs) and plastic recycling facilities (PRFs), Digimarc digital watermarks also add value throughout the product lifecycle to enhance profitability and inform smarter outcomes.

Once applied, digital watermarks support product authentication, manufacturing and supply chain inspection, dual-factor customer loyalty programs, next-generation retail checkout, and other enterprise applications, providing accretive value. As a founding member of Digimarc?s Center of Expertise (CoE) program, Wipak receives unparalleled access to expertise and tools to incorporate Digimarc's technology into digital identification and authentication solutions across industries. As a premier-level member, the company can also offer customers the option to deploy digital watermarks now and activate them later.

Unlike other data carriers, which can?t be turned off once deployed, Digimarc digital watermarks allow companies to anticipate future needs while taking advantage of packaging refreshes, regional rollouts, marketing campaigns, and other initiatives.