A groundbreaking partnership between Picadeli, a trailblazing salad company, and Digimarc Corporation a global leader in digital watermarking technologies, has been announced. This collaboration aims to address the growing challenges of retail shrinkage and food fraud in the fresh and prepared foods sector. By integrating Digimarc’s advanced digital watermarking technology into Picadeli’s branded packaging, the partnership empowers retailers to enhance product security, ensure pricing accuracy at self-checkout, and streamline operations. This innovation promises to significantly reduce losses while maintaining a seamless and efficient shopping experience for consumers.
Retailers across the globe, whether small independents or large chains, are increasingly grappling with price look-up (PLU) fraud, particularly in self-checkout lanes. This issue is especially prevalent in categories such as fresh produce, deli counters, and salad bars. According to recent studies, the shrink rate for retailers using self-checkout systems has surged to nearly 4%, more than double the industry average. The fresh foods segment, with its high turnover and variability, is particularly vulnerable, posing a direct threat to profitability.
“As Picadeli continues to expand its AI-powered Salad Bar offerings across the U.S., we remain steadfast in our commitment to supporting our retail partners in eliminating shrink,” said Patrik Hellstrand, CEO of Picadeli US. “Our partnership with Digimarc directly addresses critical challenges such as PLU fraud, ensuring both operational efficiency and a smooth consumer shopping journey. This initiative aligns perfectly with our mission to innovate and disrupt the fresh food market using advanced, cutting-edge technologies.”
Addressing Shrinkage with Digital Watermarking
The core of this partnership lies in Digimarc’s innovative digital watermarking technology. Unlike traditional barcodes, which can be obscured, manipulated, or tampered with, Digimarc’s invisible watermarks are embedded throughout a product’s packaging. These watermarks are not visible to the naked eye but are detectable by scanning systems, ensuring that critical product data remains intact during the checkout process. The technology seamlessly integrates with weight-based and variable product codes, triggering automatic overrides if the entered data does not match the embedded digital watermark information.
This capability offers robust protection against PLU fraud. For example, shoppers might attempt to pass off premium items, such as prepared meals or specialty produce, as lower-cost alternatives. With Digimarc’s technology, any discrepancies between the product’s embedded data and the entered code are immediately flagged, ensuring accurate pricing without requiring intervention from store staff.
By embedding digital watermarks into Picadeli’s branded packaging, retailers gain a powerful tool for maintaining security and reducing shrinkage while preserving the design and operational efficiency of their packaging. This innovation ensures that retailers can uphold checkout accuracy without compromising the customer experience or slowing down self-service lanes.
Enhancing the Shopping Experience
“As self-service and fresh food options continue to grow, retailers are faced with increased complexity in maintaining both security and operational efficiency,” explained Riley McCormack, President and CEO of Digimarc. “We are thrilled to collaborate with Picadeli to deliver solutions that address these pain points head-on. Together, we are not only mitigating retail shrink but also elevating the self-checkout experience for both retailers and their customers. Our goal is to provide industry-leading solutions that improve the retail experience by enhancing efficiency, preventing loss, and reducing fraud.”
For retailers, the benefits of this partnership extend beyond loss prevention. The technology also supports smoother store operations and improves the overall shopping experience by minimizing the need for manual interventions. Customers benefit from a frictionless checkout process, free of delays or confusion caused by pricing inaccuracies. Retailers, in turn, gain greater confidence in their self-service systems and can focus on delivering high-quality products to their customers.
A Step Toward Retail Innovation
Picadeli and Digimarc’s partnership represents a significant step forward in addressing some of the most pressing challenges in the retail industry today. By combining Picadeli’s expertise in fresh food innovation with Digimarc’s technological advancements, the two companies are setting a new standard for operational efficiency and fraud prevention in the fresh foods sector.
As the popularity of self-service shopping continues to grow, innovative solutions like digital watermarking are poised to play a critical role in ensuring the security and profitability of retail operations. This collaboration demonstrates a shared vision for leveraging technology to create a more efficient, secure, and enjoyable shopping experience, ultimately benefiting both retailers and consumers alike.
