Kodak, HP To Fight Counterfeit Wine
In an industry where nothing is sacred and business is booming, counterfeiting has become a huge problem, and that problem is now plaguing the wine industry. It’s the same question that consumers ask themselves when purchasing wine online, at auction, or even at a retailer they aren’t familiar with: Is this wine I’m buying fake?
Both Eastman Kodak and Hewlett Packard are devising plans to help wineries ensure authenticity. Kodak has teamed up with a company to provide a label that can be scanned by a special device that will verify if the bottle is a fake or the real thing. HP has taken a similar approach with a device they call “Memory Spot”. It can easily be affixed to the wine bottle and will contain encoded information that will be hard for counterfeiters to duplicate.
The wineries that have started employing these solutions, including Vineyard 29, Staglin Vineyards, and Colgin, claim that the up front cost is minor when compared with the long term cost of their brands tarnished by fakes. It’s probable more wineries will follow suit, considering the integrity of their name is what’s at stake.
Read [MSN.com Money]
