Digimarc and German retailer Netto Marken-Discount have announced the introduction of the former’s 'Recycle' technology to Netto-branded products in the latter's 4,300 stores across the US.

Leveraging Digimarc’s technology, Netto's privately labelled food and beverage products have been digitised.

This includes the integration of Digimarc's digital watermarks into the packaging.

Digimarc Recycle also offers to capture and present a complete overview of the product's journey after purchase, thereby offering key data that works to benefit stakeholders across the value chain.

Digimarc CEO Riley McCormack said: “More sustainable packaging is becoming a business imperative, and Digimarc’s digital watermarks are transforming recycling as a validated way to improve circularity dramatically.”

Retailers such as Netto are deploying Digimarc's invisible digital watermarking on the surface of their respective packages or label artwork.

Being imperceptible to the human eye, the digital watermarks align well without disturbing packaging designs and branding.

Digimarc stated that Netto has already improved several food and beverage packages by incorporating these digital watermarks.

Since 2018, Netto has been the sole German retailer to implement Digimarc's digital watermarks on its private-label food packaging range.

Netto's corporate spokesperson Christina Stylianou said: “We initially cooperated with Digimarc to optimise our checkout by digitising our private label food and beverage products with Digimarc’s technology

“Netto is now also well positioned to adopt Digimarc Recycle by leveraging the same Digimarc digital watermarking technology that makes the checkout easier and more efficient. We are ready and excited for Digimarc Recycle to come to Germany in the near future.”

Digimarc Recycle is set to launch in France and Canada shortly while discussions are underway for its introduction in other countries worldwide.