With major customers mandating radio frequency identification to streamline distribution, food companies are rushing to address the implementation issues.
Only 3 percent of respondents to FE's annual packaging trends survey believed RFID would have a significant impact. In the next few months, the Department of Defense's Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) and Wal-Mart threw their weight behind RFID. Both have mandated that major suppliers begin using RFID tags on shipments to their distribution centers by January 2005. Almost overnight, RFID was transformed from a back-burner issue to the auto ID market's equivalent to Y2K.