Digimarc Corporation and Netto Marken-Discount announced an important milestone in delivering an easier, more efficient checkout while ensuring Netto-branded products at Netto's 4,300 stores nationwide, are Digimarc Recycle-ready. Netto private label food and beverage products are now digitized using Digimarc's product digitization technology, including incorporating covert Digimarc digital watermarks into the packaging. Netto boasts an extensive sustainability program -- assuming responsibility for business outcomes is part of the Netto corporate culture.

The retailer focuses on four areas: the careful use of resources, a sustainable purchasing strategy, fair trade and cooperation, and social commitment. In addition to expanding Netto's sustainable private-label products, the retailer is reducing its ecological footprint through initiatives focused on climate protection, biodiversity, freshwater, and resources. The technology to effect change exists today.

Digimarc Recycle represents a revolution in the sortation of plastic waste and recycling. By linking covert digital watermarks (used to deterministically identify plastic packaging to any desired level of granularity) with an extensible cloud-based repository of product attributes (such as brand, SKU, product variant, packaging composition, food/non-food use, etc.), Digimarc Recycle over the limitations of today's optical sorting technologies to drive a step-change improvement in the quality and quantity of recyclate. Moreover, the same information used to drive this advanced sortation in facilities can provide product-specific and location-based disposal instructions via a brand-owned direct-to-consumer digital communication channel accessed via on-pack watermarks or QR codes.

In addition to providing the information necessary to power advanced sortation at recycling facilities, Digimarc Recycle captures and provides a holistic view of the post-purchase product journey.