NZ, Australia embrace tracking systems to beat fakes

WELLINGTON/SYDNEY: As China’s middle class develops its taste for imported food and drink, fresh produce suppliers in New Zealand and Australia are topping up nature’s bounty with anti-counterfeiting technology in a bid to protect their growing business from fakes.

Suppliers of goods from fruit to wine and lamb are teaming up with makers of tracking systems, codes and powders to combat fakes that cost the global food business billions of dollars.

As tech tools become cheaper, services like WeChat app are being deployed, offering consumers a free scanning ally to work out what’s on Chinese store shelves.

Smaller players like meat company Silver Fern Farms and Synlait Milk have tapped local tech firms like Dunedin’s Oritain, which measures food isotopes as a checkable ‘fingerprint’.

But Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba is also in on the act with a pilot Blockchain-based tracing system, signing up dairy giant Fonterra and Australian vitamin supplier Blackmores as partners.

“We see the Australian and New Zealand markets setting the tone for the rest of the world when it comes to integrity, safety and quality of food supply chains,” said Maggie Zhou, Alibaba’s Australia and New Zealand managing director. “It was a natural decision to pilot a programme here.”

Fraud costs the global food industry an estimated US$40 billion (RM177.6 billion) a year, said Alibaba, citing a research conducted by Michigan State University. Reuters